


Kingdom Hearts: Ocean View

by Consign_of_Fiction



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Canon Rewrite, Disney Movies, Final Fantasy - Freeform, Friendship, Keyblade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 15:32:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11016318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Consign_of_Fiction/pseuds/Consign_of_Fiction
Summary: The night that Destiny Islands went dark - what would have happened if the Keyblade had ended up in the hands of Kairi instead of Sora? How would she have dealt with being thrust into the role of 'The Keyblade's Chosen One'? And how would those that sought to use her heart for their own ends have reacted in response to this development?Just how different would the story of Kingdom Hearts be with the seventh Princess of Heart also being the hero that stands in the villains' way?





	1. Prologue: Destiny's Beginning

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            _“I just can’t wait, once we set sail. It’ll be great!”_

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_“There’s a storm? Wait, what about the…”_

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Kairi arrived on the island where the raft Riku, Sora, and she had built was. The storm could damage it, so she had to make sure it was safe. She could imagine her friends weren’t far behind, but she couldn’t wait for them. She began running across the beach while her eyes were drawn to the peculiar black orb floating in the sky, stunned by its appearance and realizing it was the true source of the current storm. Even still she stayed on target and made her way towards the other side of the island

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            But before she was even half way across the beach, she was forced to stop when something rose up from the ground in front of her. Out of nowhere, a big ant-like creature appeared and looked at her with glowing yellow eyes. “What is this thing?” She wondered aloud.

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            The black creature lashed out at her, surprising her as it jumped up and she reflexively struck out with a fist, knocking it back. But as it stood up again, more creatures of the same kind rose up all around Kairi and surrounded her. She couldn’t fight them, so she ran away.

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            The creatures chased after her, and more kept rising up out of the sand as she went, but Kairi didn’t stop running and tried to get to the hidden place, hoping she could hide there. For some reason though, when she neared the entrance, she saw it barricaded by a fancifully designed door. “A door, where did it…” She wondered, but decided to worry about it later with more of the creatures closing in behind her.

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            She reached the door and tried to push passed it, but it didn’t budge. She grabbed a handle and pulled with all her strength, but it still didn’t seem to want to open. “Come on… budge!” She urged the door as she continued pulling on it.

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             For a brief second, she thought it might just be hopeless, but then something seemed to flicker, and the door burst open, so suddenly that she fell down. But she could relax yet as the creatures were right on top of her now. Quickly, Kairi pushed to her feet, got to the other side of the door, and pulled it closed again just before one of the creatures chasing her could leap through the opening.

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            At that moment, Kairi dropped to her knees and tried to catch her breath, still shocked by what just happened. Her breathing slowed and she looked around. For now, it seemed that none of those creatures were around here, so she tried to calm down and stood back up to go further into the cave.

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            She reached the place where the cave opened up and looked around, briefly taking in the various chalk sketches she and her friends had made over the years before focusing on the flat wooden door at the other end. Silently, Kairi wondered if this door was connected in some way to the one that had appeared at the entrance, and drew closer to it.

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            It looked like an ordinary door – aside from its placement in the rocks of a cave – and had no handle with which to open it. Yet, as Kairi reached and touched it, she felt an odd energy radiating from it. It felt dangerous, and Kairi stepped back. Before her eyes, some kind of shadows started leaking out from the outline of the door frame, and Kairi realized with a start that it was no longer safe to be here.

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            She turned to run away, but then the creatures appeared again, rising up from the ground like before all around her in the cave, and cutting her off from the exit. She was trapped.

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            She tried to think of some way out of this, but the creatures didn’t give her the time as they all jumped up to attack her together. With a scream, Kairi put her hands up over her head in a desperate attempt to protect herself, but when the creatures came down on her…

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            _FLASH!_ A bright light stretched outward from Kairi and destroyed the creatures instantly. Kairi opened her eyes with surprise that she was saved, but not as much as she was when she looked at her hands and saw that she was holding something now.

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            At a glance, it was an oversized key, but its gold hand guard gave it the impression of being intended for combat. It was an odd thing, but it was a weapon, so when more of the shadowy creatures appeared around her again, she didn’t hesitate. Kairi took a stance, one hand in front of her and the strange weapon ready at her side.

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            But the creatures seemed more cautious now, and instead of attacking all at once, one of the ants went first and jumped at her. Reacting fast, Kairi stepped back as it landed where she had been, and then lashed out with the weapon in her hand, striking the creature’s head, and was surprised when she killed it with that one blow.

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            The creature burst into ribbons and faded, leaving nothing behind. Then Kairi turned around to face the other ones and this time, she attacked first. Lunging out at the closest one, Kairi took out the second ant just as easily as the first, and twisted around to do the same with the third, but when she brought her weapon down on the next one, the creature flattened itself against the ground and avoided being struck. Kairi gasped at the sight as the creature moved around the ground like a literal shadow and rose back up behind her before lurching at her again.

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            Kairi kicked the creature away, and then brought her weapon overhead to kill the creature before it could try anything else. She paused again with no more creatures in sight at the moment, but when she looked back and saw the shadows still leaking out of the doorway behind her, she collected herself and ran back for the exit. The creatures would still be out there, but it was better than being a sitting duck in here.

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            Kairi reached the door and opened it with much greater ease than before. But as she expected, the creatures were still around outside, and she quickly moved to dispatch the ones closest to her with the weapon in her hand and tried to get back to the docks. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but after all the creatures, the doors, and this strange key, the raft was the least of Kairi’s worries now. Now she had to make sure her friends were safe. If Sora and Riku had come here after her as she expected, they would be getting chased by the ants as well.

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            They were better fighters than her, but she still worried. However, before she could reach the docks, the island shook violently and disrupted her balance. Kairi steadied herself as the shaking stopped, and then when she looked around, she homed in on the miniature island passed the seaside shack and bridge. There, she could make out two people that looked like Sora and Riku. They looked fine for now, but they were standing directly beneath the giant orb that seemed to be threatening destruction of the island as she realized the boats and wood planks from the dock were getting pulled up and drawn in by it, so she had to hurry.

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            Kairi ran toward the shack while killing some of the creatures the sprung up around her, burst into the shed, bolted up the stairs, and pushed through the other door in front of the bridge. She started running across the bridge towards the miniature island, but as she did, realized that the island around her seemed to have crumbled away in seconds. More and more of the island was getting burned away and pulled up by the black orb in the sky, so much so that it seemed to be leaving nothing behind but empty space. And when she reached the other side of the bridge and came to a stop, was horrified to not see Sora or Riku there at all.

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            Where were they? Did she imagine them? Even if she had, what happened to them with the rest of the island burning away?

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            As she asked herself these questions, the bridge behind her was also ripped up and absorbed in the orb over her head. The event caused the miniature island to shake and throw Kairi over into the water below with a scream. She pulled herself back up to see that the destruction of the island was quickly approaching her.

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            Instinctively, Kairi started running away from the destruction’s edge as fast as she could and made her way to the other side of the island, thinking once again of the raft. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find anymore, but when she reached her destination, she only found that the destruction that was still chasing her from behind was approaching this spot from all directions.

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            Sora and Riku were still nowhere to be found, and all she could see of the raft was a broken corner sticking out of the sand. There was nothing left anywhere but her and this small piece of land that was still burning away even now. Feeling truly helpless, Kairi’s knees gave in and she dropped to the ground. And as she sat there on her hands and knees, she wondered silently if this was the end.

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            The islands had literally fallen apart. Nothing was left but the small rock she was currently on. It wasn’t just Sora and Riku, but everyone that lived here must have been swallowed up, and it wouldn’t be long until she was too.

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            As those thoughts swirled around in her head, Kairi saw something out of the corner of her eye and lifted her head to see a giant black… thing with a hole in its stomach stand up next to her. It had the shape of a person, but it was huge and clearly the same make as the ants she’d fought before.

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            Kairi looked up and stared into the thing’s beady yellow eyes and thought to herself that this was it: game over. She resigned herself to this fate and turned her head down. However, as she faced the ground, her eyes fell over the odd, key-shaped weapon that had simply appeared in her hands barely ten minutes ago. For some unknown reason, that didn’t feel like a coincidence. It couldn’t be insignificant that this thing had appeared just in time to save her life.

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            So Kairi gathered her strength, gripped the weapon, and pulled herself back to her feet once more. “No, this can’t be it.” She said aloud, half to herself and half to the huge creature towering over her. “I won’t let this be the end!” She cried out with solidarity. And as if taking that as its cue, the huge creature lifted up its hand, gathered some kind of dark energy in its fist, and threw it down at Kairi.

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            Running to the side, Kairi avoided being crushed and turned back around, but was surprised when more of the ant-like creatures started spawning from a pool of darkness the big creature created with its punch. Psyching herself up, Kairi clenched her teeth and ran back at the giant’s fist.

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            The ants met her charge and jumped up at her one by one, but knowing the strength of the weapon in her hand, held no fear for them and swatted them each away, destroying them each with a single strike as she reached the giant’s hand and attacked. This thing clearly wasn’t going to go down with just a single strike, but after four or five hits from her weapon, the giant retracted his hand to try something else, and the dark pool it had created disappeared.

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            Kairi made quick work of the remaining ants and then charged in at the giant’s feet, striking its legs now since the rest of its body was too high to get at. The giant reacted to her attacks and lifted up its foot in an attempt to stomp down on Kairi, but she ducked out of the way and avoided taking any damage.

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            Both she and the giant took a step away, and Kairi watched as the creature kneeled down in front of her, stretched out its arms, and gathered more energy, but this time into the hole in its stomach. After holding that for a second, the giant shot out a comet of energy that turned in mid-air to target Kairi on the ground.

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            Kairi had to run in spite of the lack of places to run to, and moved in a circle toward the giant. The comet tried to chase Kairi down, but it hit the ground first and left a crater where it hit. But just when the first comet was gone, the dark giant shot out another. Kairi tried to keep moving but she was already running out of room as she approached the giant’s arm.

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            She struck out at the giant’s hand twice while she could, but then stopped and tried to back out of the way, but the comet homed in on her and struck her down. The attack hurt, but Kairi heard another comet fire and moved quick to get back on her feet. But when she looked up, was shocked to find not just one, but three comets homing in on her now. Afraid, Kairi started running again, and when the comets got close, made the risky move of ducking under the first one so it flew over her head and struck the ground behind her. Then she sidestepped the second, but had no time for the last one and desperately swung her weapon at it in some attempt to defend herself.

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            But to Kairi’s surprise, the comet was repelled rather easily by the key. Not only that, but she watched as the comet rounded back on its original path to strike the giant in the head. At that, it’s head reeled and the energy it had gathered at its stomach disappeared.

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            The giant looked down at Kairi and moved its hand to try and grab her, so she ran back and avoided being caught, and then the giant placed its other hand against the ground while lifting its left up before bringing it plunging the whole arm into the ground. A resulting shockwave pushed Kairi back, but she stood strong while the giant pulled its arm out of another pool of darkness and brought out an orb of dark energy and tossed it up into the air, where it burst out into many smaller orbs that began raining down all over what was left of the island.

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            Kairi had to hurry, each of its attacks were getting more and more versatile, and she didn’t know what would come next if she got passed this. She moved in while avoiding the falling orbs of energy and struck the giant’s legs again, but then kept moving so she wouldn’t be caught by the dark rain.

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            As she circled around, she jumped up and hit the giant’s hand once. She kept running after that, and when the giant punched down at her again, she made a dive for safety. One of the falling orbs hit her as she turned around, but it didn’t hurt as much as the energy comet. But when Kairi saw the giant spawn more of the ants, she knew she had to do something to end this fast.

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            Charging in, Kairi had an idea and jumped up onto the giant’s hand and ran up its arm, aiming for the giant’s head. She reached its shoulders as the giant stood up straight and the dark rain stopped and starting wailing on the thing’s head. It barely seemed to react, but she didn’t stop. And when the giant lifted its hand to try and grab Kairi again, she decided it was now or never.

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            In an all-or-nothing move, Kairi gripped her weapon with both hands and – with all her strength – plunged the key into the giant’s eye. At that moment, the monster stopped moving and toppled over.

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            Kairi fell off of it and lost hold of her weapon as she rolled onto the ground, but she had done it. She’d defeat it. The new ants it had spawned were also gone, so that meant the only remaining problem was…

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            Kairi looked up at the huge orb the was continuing to burn away what little was left of her home, and wondered what would happen to her now. She couldn’t believe this was the end; she wouldn’t. There had to be something after this, something more for her to do.

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            She had to figure out what happened to Sora and Riku. She knew she saw them here before her fight, so they must have gotten away – away to another world. So that’s what she would do too. She would get to the world beyond this one, she would find them there, and the three of them would always be together, just like she’d told Sora they would be earlier that day.

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            What little of the island that was left shook again, and both the fading giant and Kairi were pulled up by the dark orb engulfing the world. As Kairi began floating up towards it, she flipped herself over to give herself one last look at the island. And as she did, she grew sad, and remembered what else she’d told Sora that day.

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            _“You know, I was a little afraid at first, but now I’m ready.”_ She’d declared. _“No matter where I go, or what I see… I know I can always come here. Right?”_

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_“Yeah, of course.”_ Sora had responded without hesitation.

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            _“That’s good.”_

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            But now, that wouldn’t be possible. Their home was disappearing; they would never see this place again. As Kairi was lifted up into the dark orb, she shed a single tear for the home she would never see again, and then, she disappeared.

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	2. The Keyblade's Chosen One

            _“Am I… really in another world?”_

_“The creatures from the island? Where do they keep coming from?”_

“They’ll come at you out of nowhere.”

            “Huh?” After looking all through the world of Traverse Town for Sora and Riku, Kairi had returned to the First District to rest up before trying again. But was then approached by a mysterious man with a scar across his face saying something cryptic.

            “And they’ll keep on coming at you, as long as you continue to wield the Keyblade.” He told her, and she could only assume he was referring to the weapon in her hand as he continued, “But still… why would it chose a little kid like you?”

            That question seemed tinged with disappointment, and Kairi frowned. “What are you talking about?”

            “Nevermind; now, let’s see that Keyblade.” The man was nonchalant in his response, and began walking towards Kairi.

            “Hey, hands off; this is mine!” Kairi shouted back at him.

            “Fine, then I guess we’re doing this the hard way.” The man said as he pulled out his own weapon, a vicious looking gunblade that sent chills down Kairi’s spine, but she wouldn’t back down.

            Kairi took her stance, but it was her attacker that made the first move. Holding up his free hand, Kairi watched as flames gathered in his palm before he threw a fireball straight at her. Moving fast, Kairi sidestepped the fireball and charged forward. She struck out at her attacker, but he had a bored expression as he held out his gunblade and defended.

            Kairi’s weapon slid off the gunblade, and her attacker turned his blade up to cut down at her from above. Instinctively, Kairi protected herself with her weapon, but was pinned there as she used all her strength to keep the sword from reaching her. “Give it up, kid. You’re out of your league.” The man looming over her said.

            However, his words only pushed Kairi harder. “I’ll never give up!’ She told him with a glare.

            Then, the young island girl let up one side of her guard so her attacker’s sword slid off to the side and gave her a full opening to strike his gut. The man lurched back, but pulled it together quick and lashed out again. Kairi avoided it and jumped to the side, then pushed off the corner of the accessory shop back at the attack to strike from overhead.

            But the man tightened his hold on his weapon and pushed Kairi back with a powerful spin strike that landed her on her back. Kairi started to push herself up, but saw her attacked preparing to shoot another fireball and rolled to the side before standing back up and running up to the man again.

            Putting all her weight behind her next attack, Kairi stabbed her weapon forward and her attacker sidestepped before slashing down at her again. Kairi returned the gesture and swung her weapon up at his, and when the two weapons collided, they bounced off each other. Kairi used the moment after strike at the man again, but he stepped out of the way, recovered, and attacked again.

            Kairi avoided it, but ended up with her back to a short wall, so when the mystery man moved into a follow up attack, she acted quick and jumped up over the wall and dropped down the other side to get to the more open square below. Her attacker followed suit and jumped out ahead of her, cutting her off and swinging his gunblade from the side.

            Kairi put her weapon up to block, but she had no time to brace herself for the impact and was struck aside. She recovered quickly, but getting knocked around was quickly wearing her out, while her attacker showed little sign of fatigue. But even still, Kairi refused to give up. She wouldn’t let it end, not until she found Sora and Riku again.

            Her attacker shot another fireball, but this time, Kairi stood her ground and swung her weapon at the magical attack. With a flash at the moment of impact, the fireball reversed course and flew back at the gunblade wielder.

            With a look of surprise, all the mystery man could do was put up his sword in reflex. He held his ground, but when he could see beyond the flames again, Kairi was already in front of him swinging her weapon. She struck the man twice before he fell back and narrowed his eyes. “The Keyblade truly is a terrifying weapon.” He muttered to himself.

            Kairi didn’t hear him, but rushed in again and lashed out once more. Her attacker responded with his sword and parried her weapon, and then lifted the gunblade to strike from above. Kairi lifted her weapon overhead and deflected the attack, but was caught off guard when the mystery man lifted one leg and kicked her directly in the face.

            She flew back and bounced once across the stone street, flipping over at the same time. Kairi tried to land on her feet and skid to a stop, but the second she tried to step forward, she lost her sense of balance and stumbled, dropping to a knee.

            Her attacker didn’t let up, however, and ran at her again. Kairi saw this and attempted to stand and defend herself, but the mystery man deflected her weapon away and opened her up to one more attack. “It’s over!” With a roar of determination, the man slashed down at Kairi with all his strength, and she toppled over, falling unconscious.

            The mystery man grunted as he stood up straight and relaxed. “Hey, looks like you found it! Nice work, Leon.”

            The man looked behind him when he was addressed and saw a young girl standing there with a big grin on her face. “Still, it looks like things are worse than we thought. A lot worse.”

 

* * *

 

 

            “Come on, time to wake up, okay?” Kairi had the worst migraine of her life when she came to. Still, she forced herself to sit up in response to the voice next to her. “You okay?”

            Kairi groaned in reply and held her head. “Headache,”

            “Those creatures you fought are after the Keyblade. But it’s your heart they really want, because you wield the Keyblade.”

            Those words were strange to Kairi, and she opened her eyes to look at who was talking – a black-haired girl she didn’t recognize, not much older than she was. “Do I know you?”

            The girl giggled at her question. “Well, I don’t think so; I’m the great ninja Yuffie.” She answered.

            But the girl’s peculiar introduction only confused Kairi further, and her head was still spinning. “Huh?” She asked, dazed.

            “You know, you could’ve gone a little easier on her, Squall.” Turning away from Kairi, the ‘great ninja’ Yuffie addressed a man leaning against a door at the other end of the room, and he stepped out to reply.

            “That’s Leon.” He corrected Yuffie.

            Instantly, Kairi’s mind sharpened to a point as she recognized them man as the one that had knocked her out in the first place, and looked around for her weapon, then noticed it was resting against the wall right next to the man in question. She paused as she realized she was basically trapped with it there, but her restored mental clarity allowed her to start putting a few things together as she looked at her weapon and recalled what both these people referred to it as.

            “It’s called a ‘Keyblade’?”

            Yuffie responded and walked over to stand by Squall, or Leon, or whatever his name was. “Yeah, we had to get it away from you to shake off those creatures. As it turns out, that’s how they were tracking you.”

            “It was the only way to conceal your heart from them, but it won’t work for long.” Leon added. “Still, hard to believe that you, of all people, are the chosen one.” He mused, half to himself, as he picked up Kairi’s Keyblade and swung it lightly to the side.

            And surprising Kairi, the Keyblade suddenly vanished from Leon’s hand and reappeared in her own. “Wow!”

            “Well, I suppose beggars can’t be choosers.” Leon relented.

            Kairi wasn’t sure what was going on. Everything these two were saying might as well have been gibberish to her, so she angrily asked for clarification. “How about you explain what’s going on? What are you talking about?”

            Leon and Yuffie shared a glance and nodded to each other. “Right, well… by now, you get that there are all sorts of world out there besides your own and this one, right?” Yuffie confirmed.

            Kairi nodded. “Yeah, I get that.”

            “Well, here’s the thing, until recently, those worlds were all completely separate from one another.” Yuffie explained and sat down next to Kairi on the bed. “Nobody anywhere knew that they existed.”

            “What changed?”

            “It was the Heartless,” Leon answered her, sounding grim. “Once they started showing up, everything fell apart.”

            “The Heartless?”

            “The creatures that attacked you, you remember?” Yuffie replied, and Kairi thought back to all the black ant-like creatures she’d had to fight, both here in town and back on the island.

            “Those without hearts.”

            “The darkness in people’s hearts. That’s what attracts them.”

            “And there is darkness… within every heart.” Leon said solemnly.

            Then, after a second of silence, Yuffie asked another question. “Hey, have you heard of someone named Ansem?”

            “I… who?” Kairi questioned.

            “He was a wise man.” Leon explained. “For a time, he had been studying the Heartless, trying to learn more about them.”

            “He wrote down all of his findings in a series of reports, but unfortunately, its pages were scattered throughout the worlds.”

            “If we could find them, they might just hold a clue to getting rid of the Heartless. But it won’t be easy. The Heartless are sure to get in our way at every turn. That’s why we needed to find the ‘key’.”

            “You need the Keyblade?” Kairi asked, not completely understanding her weapon’s significance.

            “That’s right. It’s the only weapon that’s custom built to fight the darkness.” Yuffie told her.

            “The Heartless have great fear of the Keyblade.” Leon concluded, and took a few steps back. “And that’s why they’ll keep coming after you, no matter what.”

            “But… why me?” Kairi pondered. She’d been thankful for its appearance that night on the island, but she never signed up to be constantly fighting for her life.

            Then, still calm and cheerful, Yuffie answered her. “The Keyblade choses its master, and it chose you.”

            “So, tough luck.” Leon berated her, yet somehow sounded more disappointed than angry.

            Yuffie and Leon seemed to have finished their explanation, but there was still one thing she didn’t quite understand. “But then, what did they do to my island? What happened to my friends?”

            “You know what?” Leon asked without looking at her, and then gave a remorseful response. “I really don’t know.”

            Definitely not the answer Kairi was hoping for, and she hung her head sorrowfully. She had believed so strongly that she would be able to find Sora and Riku again, but she hadn’t found them anywhere in this town. If only she had found her way here, then where were they, what _really_ happened to them when they’d disappeared from the island? She didn’t know the answer to those questions, and it made her feel hopeless. But in the middle of despair, Leon cut into her thoughts with a sigh.

“Listen, Kairi. I hate to dump this all on you, but it’s like I said before, concealing your heart won’t work for long. Sooner or later, the Heartless _will_ find you again. When they do, you have to be ready to face them, you can’t go into this half-hearted. So I need you to make a decision – right here, right now.” He told her, one hundred percent serious, and then asked, “Are you prepared to fight for your life?”

Kairi was taken aback. He made it sound like an ultimatum, but there was something in the way Leon spoke that made Kairi hear it as more than that. It sounded like he was challenging her.

            Challenging her to go on, even though she didn’t have all the answers. Challenging her to fight, even not knowing if she could win. Challenging her to live, even with no proof that she’d get a happy ending.

            He challenged her to take control of her own life, and to never give up, no matter the odds. Maybe he’d taken on that challenge himself; maybe he forced himself to continue forward, to believe that this wasn’t the end, and that there were greater things in store for him.

            And that challenge resonated strongly in Kairi’s heart. After all, hadn’t she taken on that challenge once already? Didn’t she choose to be strong on that island, as she faced off against that giant Heartless? Hadn’t she declared it loudly – both then and when she fought against Leon – that she wouldn’t let this be the end, and that she would never give up?

            She reminded herself of that pledge, and with newfound determination, looked up to meet Leon’s gaze, and nodded to him. Understanding, Leon nodded back at her, and stepped away from the door behind him. “Yuffie, let’s go join Aerith. She should be there by now with the other visitors.” He announced, and turned to open the door he’d been leaning on.

            But suddenly, “Leon!” Yuffie shouted, and Leon twisted back to see a Heartless appear right in the middle of the hotel room.

            “Yuffie, go!” Leon ordered her to run, and without hesitation, the ninja girl ran through to the next room. Kairi thought she heard other voices come from that room, but she had no time to worry about that now. She’d just decided that she would fight for her life; now it was time to put those words into action. “Kairi, let’s go!”

            The Heartless jumped at the two of them, but with one big swing of his gunblade, Leon knocked the creature straight out a window like it was a baseball. Quickly, he jumped out of the room after it, and Kairi followed suit, jumping down from the outside balcony and landing next to Leon in an alleyway, finding herself suddenly surrounded by a horde of the small soldier Heartless.

            “What do we do?” Kairi asked hurriedly, but there was no fear in her voice, only steadfast determination.

            “Don’t worry about the small fry.” Leon told her, their backs to each other with an astonishing level of trust considering they had just been fighting each other not too long ago. “Find the leader and take him out!”

            Kairi nodded, and the two of them ran off in different directions, splitting up to cover more ground. Kairi pushed passed the soldier Heartless as quickly as she could, only swatting away the ones that got too close as she made her way around the hotel and into Traverse Town’s second district.

            She came to a stop for a minute and tried to think about where she’d be most likely to find the leader. She’d looked around the town before her encounter with Leon, so she had gotten acquainted with the layout and size of the districts. She remembered the giant Heartless she’d fought on Destiny Islands, and assumed that if she were looking for a boss Heartless, it would be in the same league as that.

            Out of everywhere she’d been, she felt like the third district was most suspect. It was a wide-open space there without much obstruction, so it would probably be perfect for a larger Heartless to fight in. It was pretty much abandoned there too, which would be good for Kairi too. Even if it wasn’t there already, if these Heartless were really after her like Leon and Yuffie said, then maybe she could lure it there so no one else would be in danger.

            Plan in mind, Kairi started to dash through the second district. She continued ducking around the soldier Heartless that continued to pop up around her, but as she ran through the alley that connected to the third district, the space became too narrow to avoid the confrontation. So when more Heartless appeared in her way, she charged in and swept her Keyblade across the space to knock them down, and then stabbed the soldier while it was on the ground to destroy it.

            Once the way forward was clear, Kairi continued on and made her way quickly to the third district and ran out to the open area in the middle. But just above her, two others came into the third district through a high balcony and stopped suddenly.

            To either side of them, soldiers appeared and immediately cornered them. Taking out a shield, the dog-person wondered aloud, “Gawrsh, are these the Heartless guys?”

            And holding a staff in front of him, the duck in front of him prepared himself for a fight. “Let’s go get ‘em, Goofy!” He called out.

            However, before either of them could do anything, a burst of energy from directly below them threw them into the air and off the balcony. Below in the open space, Kairi heard the sudden screams and looked up to see the duck and dog falling down right above her. She tried to get out of them way, but had no time as they dropped down on her back.

            All three of them groaned from the impact, but as they lied there, the two on top of Kairi took notice of her Keyblade and made a sudden exclamation. “Oh, the key!”

            The two of them got off of Kairi and she got up again, looking at the two of them questionably. “You know about the Keyblade?” She confirmed, wondering who they were.

            They were about the answer, but taking them by surprise, all the exits in the third district were sealed off by walls rising up in the spaces between walls. Without warning, the three of them had been penned in and a large number of soldier Heartless surrounded them.

            Kairi prepared herself and readied her Keyblade. Taking notice of the shield and staff in the other two’s hands, she asked to make sure, “Can you fight?” They nodded confidently, so she let herself relax and focus on the danger in front of her.

            Taking the initiative, Kairi lashed out at the closest soldier and destroyed it in just a few hits. She remembered how Yuffie had said the Keyblade was custom built to fight the darkness, and she was starting to understand what that meant. When the next soldier clawed out at Kairi, she backed away from it, but didn’t notice the other one jumping at her from behind.

            Covering her though, the duck-person shot out a fire spell and exploded against the Heartless and sent it flying. Kairi turned to see this happen, and exchanged a glance with the duck as he nodded to her to keep fighting, seeming to say he had her back.

            Kairi did so and faced the Heartless in front of her again as it clomped forward, but then the dog-person stepped out in front of her and smashed the side of his shield into the soldier’s head, knocking it down. He turned to Kairi and gave her a thumbs-up, as if telling not to worry about anything, and she was grateful for their help, even though she didn’t yet know who they were.

            Together, the three of them fought off the wave of Heartless while looking out for one another until they killed the last one. They couldn’t let their guard down just yet though, these Heartless were still just the foot soldiers. As for the leader…

            Very suddenly, it fell straight out of the sky. Crashing and bouncing off the ground, what looked like the pieces to a giant suit of armor appeared before them and quick assembled itself, its armored feet and gauntlets hovering around its body as if connected by invisible joints. And when the creature’s helmet head dropped down on top, Kairi and the others knew this was it. If they could defeat this one, they won.

            “Take it down!” Kairi shouted, and together, the three of them plunged in.

            The Heartless knight met their attack and shot its gauntlets out at them. They all side stepped the first one as it crashed into the ground, and the dog-person slammed his shield against the second one to keep it at bay while Kairi continued on and attacked the knight’s body after the duck-mage hit it with a fire spell. She jumped up to get good clean hits on its center and then struck its armored feet when she landed as well.

            It felt strange trying to fight an enemy made of metal, but Kairi could feel the knight’s armor dent under each strike from her Keyblade, and kept hammering away at it while the other two kept its gauntlets busy. The knight lifted up its leg to try and squash Kairi underfoot, so she dropped back before it could and turned to help the duck-mage fending off one the right gauntlet.

            She gave it a few hard whacks, and then both gauntlets returned to the sides of the armor’s main body. She and the others ran in at it again, but when they got close, the Heartless knight took its gauntlets and had them start spinning around its body at high speed like the blades of a ceiling fan, plowing into all of them and sending them careening into the surrounding walls.

            Kairi stumbled from the impact, but forced herself to stay standing. She looked around at the people fighting with her as they shook off the attack as well before immediately charging back in. The Heartless knight’s feet came stomping towards her, but she slipped passed them to get to the main body. She prepared to launch an attack, but had to stop and spin away from the right gauntlet as it attempted to punch her. It missed by a hair, but then the left gauntlet followed up and Kairi could only hold her Keyblade out as it slammed into her and threw her to the side.

            She fell down near the duck-mage, and he helped her get back up. “Come on, we’ll take out the limbs first!” He told her, devising a plan to make the fight go smoother.

            Kairi nodded in agreement, realizing it would be difficult to get at the main body otherwise, and the duck-mage started out with another fire spell aimed at the legs that had walked off from the rest of the body, indicating them to be the first target to the dog-knight on the other side as the flame exploded against the left foot, and he quickly went in to start smashing his shield against the right.

            Kairi let herself be impressed at their coordination, and charged in to help attack the legs as the dog-knight avoiding kicks from them. She attacked the heels of both feet while the dog-knight struck the toes with his shield.

            “Look out!” A few second later though, the duck-mage called out a warning to Kairi, and she turned to see the Heartless knight’s gauntlets spinning at her like the attack that had hit them all before.

            Reacting to this, Kairi spun in place to swing her Keyblade at the approaching gauntlets. There was a flash from the Keyblade as contact was made, and the Keyblade held the first gauntlet at bay as the second one continued spinning and crashed into the other. The gauntlets toppled over each other and fell onto the ground, completely vulnerable.

            But the flash of another fire spell exploding against the knight’s feet reminded Kairi she still had an active target beside her and she returned to attacking the feet while the gauntlets were down. “Here,” Then the dog knight called to Kairi as he struck the top of the left foot’s toes with his shield once more and enlarged a tough dent in the armor.

            Kairi understood what he wanted and jumped up to drive her Keyblade down on top of the dent, and her weapon easily penetrated the weakened armor, ripping a hole into the left foot.

            A moment later, the armored foot shattered to pieces and disappeared, leaving them with one less annoyance to worry about. But when the first foot was destroyed, the remaining three limbs zipped back to the main body defensively. Similarly, the three fighting the Heartless gathered up together as a united front.

            But when the Heartless knight moved next, it attacked by jumping into the air over their heads and tumbling down on top of them. Immediately, the three of them ducked off in different directions again, and when Kairi rolled back to her feet and turned around, the Heartless was already upright again and threw out its gauntlets to attack her.

            Kairi narrowly avoided the right gauntlet when it came at her, and when the left one came flying down at her, she put her Keyblade up defensively to hold it back. “Watch out!” To the side, the dog-knight tried to give her a warning while he defended against the remaining foot, but when Kairi was pinned down as the right gauntlet moved in again and snatched her off her feet.

            Lifting her up and back towards its main body, Kairi struggled to free herself from the gauntlet’s crushing grip, but it was too strong for her to pry its fingers away. She tried to examine the situation, and then noticed the space in the gauntlet’s finger joints. Lifting her Keyblade, Kairi stabbed it behind the thumb of the gauntlet and broke that piece off.

            Now able to slip out, Kairi jumped off of the gauntlet and struck the Heartless knight’s head and body as she dropped back to the ground, and then ran under the Heartless before the gauntlets came after her again.

            She and the Heartless knight turned around to face one another again, and when it threw its right gauntlet again, Kairi lashed out at it with her Keyblade and took off another one of its fingers. The gauntlet backed away from her, but then the duck-mage hit it with another fire spell from the side and knocked it down, giving Kairi a perfect opportunity to pierce through the gauntlet’s weakened armor and destroy it completely.

            The Heartless knight was down to two limbs now, and both were already quite beat up, the dents and scorch marks plenty noticeable on them. Growing more confident, Kairi ran forward, and the remaining gauntlet lunged towards her as well. She sidestepped the attack so the hand would hit the ground and planned to hit it before noticing the Heartless knight’s foot and body coming down at her right after.

            She ran away from them as the foot hit the ground, and when the main body fell down at her right after, the dog-knight jumped in a smashed his shield into it, moving it just enough to avoid crushing Kairi beneath. Having the main body right in front of them now, both Kairi and the dog-knight starting wailing on the Heartless until it picked itself back up and had its gauntlet and foot try to attack them both, forcing them to back away.

            Then the gauntlet jumped out at her, and Kairi dodged to the side and brought her Keyblade down from overhead. Her attack ripped into the gauntlet, but before it shattered, Kairi pulled on it and threw it at the Heartless knight’s main body. The gauntlet struck against it once and shattered while Kairi slipped passed it and sliced through the final leg that was attacking the dog-knight, shattering it as well.

            She and the dog-knight smiled at each other, but then his expression became concerned as he saw the Heartless knight begin to rapidly spin its body and move towards them. He shouted at Kairi to look out, and then pushed passed her to try and guard against the attack, but was overpowered and sent flying.

            Kairi faced it and tried to bring her Keyblade up in defense, but she was too slow and was struck back as well, landing next to the dog-knight as the duck-mage ran to their sides. Kairi pushed herself up to a crouch and glared at the Heartless knight. It had stopped spinning, but it looked like it was just waiting for them to get close again. “Come on,” The duck-mage go her attention. “One more push!”

            Nodding, Kairi stood up once again and prepared to finish this. “You ready?” The Dog-knight made sure as he stood beside her.

            Again, Kairi nodded. “Yeah, let’s do it!” She declared, and together, she and the dog-knight ran forward.

            As they approached, the Heartless knight began spinning its body again, but being prepared for it, the dog-knight ran ahead and crashed his shield into it, pushing in the opposite direction of its spin.

            The Heartless pushed back as sparks flew between it and the shield, but when the duck-mage hit it with one of his fire spells, the explosion made it reel and stop spinning. The dog-knight struck the edge of his shield against the Heartless one more time, and then stepped back and put his shield over his head. “Going up,” He called to Kairi as she ran up behind him.

            Understanding the intent, Kairi ran up to the dog-knight, jumped over him, planted one foot onto his shield, and jumped again as he pushed her up from below. Rising up above the Heartless knight, Kairi held her Keyblade extended overhead, and in one swift motion, brought it down at she fell at the Heartless.

            Striking the helmet head first, the Keyblade ripped straight through both it and the body armor below as she dropped down, ending only when the weapon touched the ground. Kairi looked up at the Heartless as it shook violently from the thick wound that stretched its entire body, and finally fell back and clattered to the ground. The Heartless knight began to glow bright as a heart was released from inside of it, and once that disappeared, it shattered and faded into nothing.

            There was a long moment of silence once it was over as Kairi and the other two relaxed. It was only now as the adrenaline wore off that Kairi realized how much pain she was in from the fight, and held her head as she collected herself. Then, the walls that had sprung up during the fight lowered themselves again, and when they did, Kairi saw Leon and Yuffie outside, and they rushed over to her to make sure she was alright.

            After explaining what happened and assuring them she was fine, Kairi’s attention returned to the ones that had helped her in the fight, and Leon explained that they were the ‘other visitors’ that he had mentioned before the Heartless showed up at the hotel, and that they had been sent here by their king to find the Keyblade wielder, same as them.

            Kairi learned their names were Donald and Goofy, and it was decided after a brief conversation that she would go with the two of them so that they could help each other in their searches for their friends.

            Their journey would likely be a long one, but Kairi had decided that she was ready for anything. She would do whatever it took to find Sora and Riku again; no matter where she had to go, or how long it took.

 

* * *

 

  
            Somewhere in another world far from Traverse Town, a group used a spell to spy on Kairi, Donald, Goofy as they conversed with each other about what to do first.

 

            “Well that didn’t go very well, did it? The kid’s tougher than she looks.” One of them stated, crossing his arms.

            “Such is the power of the Keyblade,” Another retorted. “The girl’s strength is not her own.”

            “Her power or not, this is quite the pickle we’re in now, wouldn’t you say?” A woman emphasized the issue.

            “And the girl’s friends are the King’s lackeys!” Another man spoke with a thick accent. “Swoggle me eyes; they’re all bilge rats, by the look of them.”

            “You’re no prize yourself.” Heckled a fifth member.

            “Shut up!”

            “Enough!” From the background, another woman addressed the group that had begun to get riled up. “The Keyblade has chosen her; nothing can be done about that now.” She said plainly, taking in the situation calmly and assessing her options.

            “Then, what are we going to do?”

            “We wait, for now. There may still be ways for us to use this to our advantage.” The woman told them, a malicious smile scrawled across her face as she looked down at the image of Kairi, Donald, and Goofy, thinking through her plans for them.


	3. Meddling

            _“Oh, my fur and whiskers. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!”_

_“How did he shrink like that?”_

“This girl is the culprit, there’s no doubt about it.”

            Having left Traverse Town, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy began their search for their friends and soon reached a new, far more bizarre world. But after having followed a certain white rabbit in hopes of getting information, the three of them found themselves standing witness to a criminal trial.

            However, it did not seem to be one with any semblance of justice in play, as the Queen of Hearts began a blatant accusation of the little girl on the stand. “And the reason is… because I say so, that’s why!”

            “That is so unfair!” The girl attempted to defend herself.

            “Well, have you anything to say in your defense?” The Queen egged the girl on, while Kairi watched from the back with a high degree of scrutiny.

            “Of course, I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.” The girl snapped back at the Queen. “You may be Queen, but I’m afraid that doesn’t give you the right to be so… so mean!”

            “Silence!” But in response to this affront to her authority, the Queen of Hearts screamed at the girl, who flinched back in fear. “You dare defy me!?”

            Kairi couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The girl on the stand was even younger than she was, she couldn’t possibly imagine child that innocent having done anything worse than taking cookies from a cookie jar. And yet this crass Queen was intent on convicting her for no reason at all.

            “I can’t watch this, we have to help her!” She told Donald and Goofy, hoping for their support.

            But her new companions only seemed to be offering their sympathy. “But Kairi, we’re not from here, so wouldn’t that be muddling?”

            “Meddling,” Donald corrected Goofy’s pronunciation.

            “Oh, yeah, and that’s against the rules.”

            Kairi looked over at the little girl again, distraught at being told that she couldn’t do a thing to help her despite the obvious injustice being perpetrated right in front of them.

            “The court finds the defendant – guilty as charged!” The Queen declared without remorse. “For the crimes of assault, and attempted theft of my heart…”

            At the very end, the Queen explained what the girl’s supposed crimes were before issuing her sentence, but that last accusation caught Kairi’s attention again, as well as Donald and Goofy. ‘Theft of a heart’ sure sounded a lot like the Heartless to the three of them, and they had already seen plenty of them prowling around Wonderland.

            If the Heartless were the cause of this farce, then there was no reason they couldn’t step in to defend this girl from being wrongfully accused of their attacks. Though Kairi wasn’t sure she would have even needed that excuse once she heard how the Queen actually wanted to punish the girl.

            Raising her voice to the card soldiers surrounding the courtyard, the Queen directed them at the girl on the stand and shouted, “Off with her head!”

            “No, no! Oh, please!” The girl pleaded in horror as the card soldiers closed in on her.

            But Kairi wasn’t going to let this go any farther. “Stop!” She shouted, directing everyone’s attention to her as she pushed through the card soldiers with the Keyblade to reach the girl on the stand.

            “Who are you!? What do you think you’re doing?” The Queen questioned as she watched Kairi swing her Keyblade to keep them at bay.

            But she didn’t reply to the Queen, instead she ran up the defense stand and took the little girl there by the hand. “This way,” She said, and pulled the little girl through the card soldiers, batting them away while the Queen shouted out orders to stop them.

            With Donald and Goofy close behind, Kairi pulled the wrongly accused child into a dense forest and found a small nook to hide in while the card soldiers passed them by. But once Kairi confirmed that they were safe, Donald blew up at her. “What do you think you’re doing!?” He squawked angrily, flailing his arms at her.

            Perplexed by his rage however, Kairi shouted back at him. “What does it look like? I’m protecting an innocent kid!” She motioned to the girl, who was looking very concerned over the whole incident.

            “That’s not the problem!” Donald argued. “Why didn’t you just explain that she had the wrong person?”

            “You think that crooked queen was going to listen to anything I said? She didn’t care about justice, she just wanted a victim!”

            “It’s still not your call to make.”

            “Uh, fellers?” Goofy interjected into the argument, and the bickering duo turned to see what he had to say. “Think maybe you could calm down a little? I think you’re scaring the poor girl.”

            Having their attention shifted to the girl herself, Kairi and Donald saw her clutching her hands to her chest and looking about ready to cry. Taking a deep breath, Kairi calmed down and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to scare you.” She apologized, and then introduced herself. “I’m Kairi, what’s your name?”

            “Oh, no, that’s alright. I’m Alice; I’m sorry for getting you all mixed up in this mess.”

            “You don’t have to apologize.” Kairi assured Alice.

            “Yeah, this is all Kairi’s fault.” Donald made a jaded jab.

            Kairi shot him a sour look, but left it alone and focused on Alice. “Why did that queen have it out for you anyways?”

            “Oh, I must say, I’d very much like to know that myself.” Alice complained. “I’d wanted to see the queen because I’d heard she’d be able to help me find my way home; but almost as soon as I arrived, I was arrested!”

            “Gawrsh, that’s just terrible.” Goofy sympathized.

            “You said you’re trying to find your way home, where are you from?” Kairi inquired further.

            “Well I… That’s funny, I can’t seem to remember.” Alice replied, oddly casual for what she was saying. “You see, I found this mysterious rabbit hole, but when I went to look inside, I tumbled in head over heels, and found myself here.”

            Alice recounted as best she could how she got here, but her explanation surprised them. “Wait, are you from another world?”

            “‘Another world’, what do you mean?”

            “That’s funny, maybe you don’t need a ship, then.” Goofy wondered.

            And Donald shook his head in confusion. “I don’t get it.”

            But conversely, Kairi was excited to hear this news. “No, this is great! If she’s not from this world, that means we can take her back to Traverse Town!” She reasoned, but Donald looked unconvinced as he crossed his arms and tapped his foot. “Right?”

            “Aw, sure we can,” Goofy agreed. “I’m sure Leon and the other’s will look out for her there, right Donald?”

            All eyes turned to Donald, who still appeared unconvinced as he stood there with a scowl. “Well?” Kairi urged him to answer.

            Donald clearly wasn’t happy with the situation, but he begrudgingly conceded. “Don’t think this gets you off that hook! You still took a big risk busting into that trial.” He chastised Kairi for her actions. “You’ve got to be more careful from now on, got it?”

            He was trying to be strict and rude, but Kairi heard a hint of genuine concern in the words Donald chose. He sounded like a parent telling their child not to play with broken glass, so Kairi smiled and nodded. “Alright, I promise.”

            “Good, now we need to find a way back to our ship.” Donald decided, but when he turned around to leave the forest nook, froze as dark portals suddenly opened up and Heartless appeared in their way, cornering them instantly.

            “Alice, stay behind me!” Kairi warned the young girl as she brandished her Keyblade in her defense and got ready to fight alongside Donald and Goofy.

            Making the first move, Kairi pointed her Keyblade at one of the soldiers in her way and used the new ability Donald had taught her. With a shout, flames erupted from the tip of her weapon and exploded against the soldier, killing it in one blow. Donald did the same with one of the shadows and directed Goofy to hold off the large body Heartless. While he did, Kairi dove into the horde of smaller Heartless while Donald stayed close to Alice and shot down anything that came too close with his magic.

            It was tough fighting in the closed off nook, but as soon as Kairi and Donald cleared out the smaller Heartless, they joined Goofy in attacking the large body, and took it down together. “Alice, are you okay?” Kairi checked on the other girl as soon as it was safe.

            “I- I think so.” Alice stuttered, clearly frightened by what just happened. “What were those things?”

            “They’re called Heartless, but that’s not important right now. The important thing is that we get you out of here.” Kairi told her, then peeked out of the nook they were in to make sure no other Heartless were around.

            She didn’t see any and stepped out, but almost at the same time, one of the card soldiers appeared from behind a tree and spotted her. “There you are!” He growled at Kairi, and then called to his fellow soldiers and began running at her.

            Quickly, Kairi ducked back into the nook. “Not good, we need another way out of here.” She said, looking around for any other path.

            Then, Goofy gave a suggestion. “Hey, maybe we can climb up to the treetops with these.” He pointed at a group of huge mushrooms sprouting from the ground that seemed to lead up into the canopy.

            “Okay, let’s go,” Kairi urged, and the group quickly started climbing.

            Donald went first, quickly making his way up to the top. Goofy followed after him but stopped half-way. From there, Kairi helped lift Alice up to the first mushroom, and Goofy reached down to pull her from there to the next, and then helped her up into the canopy before he and Kairi followed up.

            The card soldiers appeared at the nook just as Kairi climbed up the first mushroom, and one of them yelled at her to stop. With only a momentary glance in their direction though, she hurried up and reached the canopy, but knew they were right behind her. “Over here!” Donald called the others over, standing next to a large opening in one of the trees. “I think this leads somewhere.”

            Kairi wasn’t entirely sure, but Wonderland had already proven to be a very confusing place, so maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched. They caught up with Donald and each ran through the opening one by one, but when Kairi fell through and burst through an opening below, she suddenly felt gravity shift directions on her and throw her in an arc before hitting the ground. When she and the others got back to their feet, they looked around and were awestruck by what they saw.

            “Hold on a second,” Kairi started as she stepped in front of the others. “This is the room we came through earlier, but…”

            “Are we standing on the wall?” Donald finished her thought.

            Sure enough, they had passed through this room just before walking in on Alice’s trial. But looking forward, they could see the table that held the shrinking potion now appearing as through it were sticking off of a wall, and out of reach. Of course, they were the ones actually on the wall, and the brick chimney was towering over them.

            “You think we could find a way back to the ground from here?” Goofy suggested.

            “Let’s hope so. Otherwise we can’t get back to the gummy ship.” Kairi answered, looking around the area for some way through here, and stopping next to a flat image of a kitchen pot at her feet.

            They had already seen a table and chairs rise up out of the ground, so Kairi wondered if the same could be done here, and called the others to her. Once they were all standing on the image, Kairi took her Keyblade and tapped on it. A light blinked, and in a puff of smoke, the pot rose out of the wall like pop-up art, raising them up until they were able to climb up onto the chimney stack.

            But just like before, as the group began climbing up, they heard the double-doors they came in through burst open and looked back to see the card soldiers charge in after them in pursuit. They hurried up onto the chimney and dropped down onto the other side to look for another way out. They found another set of double doors and ran towards them, but could hear the card soldiers on their tails as they opened it up and dropped through.

            With another shift in gravity, Kairi and the others came through the opening only to find themselves back in the lotus forest, on another part of the canopy. “Are you kidding me?” Kairi complained.

            “How does anyone navigate a screwed-up place like this?” Donald squawked, just as distraught.

            “Come on, we gotta keep going.” Goofy reminded them that the card soldiers were right behind them, and the four jumped down from the canopy onto a group of huge lily pads that kept them from hitting the ground too hard and then ran for it.

            They could hear the card soldiers as they emerged back into the forest, and slipped into a hidden enclosing to try and hide, and they found another tunnel inside. “Think it’s safe?” Kairi asked, as it had become quickly apparent they couldn’t know what to expect with this world.

            “I’ll check,” Donald volunteered and stepped through the tunnel. However, barely three seconds later, he came running back through, passing by the rest of them. “Nope!”

            The mage ran back out of the enclosing, and as more card soldiers began pouring out of the tunnel behind. Breaking into another sprint, Kairi, Goofy, and Alice followed after Donald as he ran aimlessly through the forest until finding another tunnel to disappear into, which lead out into another wall of the bizarre room, but the group of fugitives desperately ignored the incoherent mess of a world around them as they continued running to escape their pursuers.

            It wasn’t easy, and the Heartless continued to show up at random just to make things worse. But eventually, after crisscrossing around the vast and confusing world several times over and ending up on just about every side of the bizarre room except the floor where they needed to be, the four of them finally managed to lose the card soldiers and end up on the west wall of the bizarre room again. They didn’t know how long it would take for the card soldiers to find them again, so they tried to catch their breath while they had the chance.

            “Confound it,” Donald complained. “How are we supposed to get out of here?”

            In response, however, a disembodied voice suddenly spoke to the group. “Having trouble, are you?”

            Surprised, Kairi and the others jumped at the sudden voice and became defensive as they looked around for its source. Just as suddenly, a cat’s head appeared out of nowhere and bobbed around in the air near Kairi, freaking her out as she jumped back as the cat’s head disappeared and reappeared on the snout of a lion head wall decoration. Dancing on the head, the cat’s body also appeared, stepping off a moment latter to pick its head up and place it on its shoulders where it should be.

            Given quite a shock from the oddity, Donald yelled out to the stripped cat. “Who are you!?”

            “Who indeed?” The cat dodged the question.

            Then Alice provided the answer. “It’s the Cheshire Cat!”

            “Who?” Kairi asked.

            “He’s the one that told me I should go see the Queen when I got here.”

            “Him? Hey, did you know Alice would get arrested if she went to the Queen?” Kairi interrogated the Cheshire Cat.

            “Oh, the Cheshire Cat has all the answers – but doesn’t always tell.” He answered suspiciously, which annoyed Kairi. “The answer, the culprit, the cat all lie in darkness.” He added with a twisted grin.

            “The culprit? You’re talking about the Heartless.”

            “Poor Alice; you won’t get her out safely with them in your way. No one can win a war fought on two fronts. The cards, or the shadows? I wonder, which one will you lose to?” The Cheshire Cat asked, standing up on his elbows and shrugging with his hind legs.

            He was right. They couldn’t keep running from the card soldiers while also fending off the Heartless. One of the two was bound catch up with them eventually, but surrendering was even further out of the question. They just needed a game plan, if they just kept running around Wonderland as they were, they’d never make it back to the gummy ship.

            “We need to find the Heartless’ leader.” Kairi decided. “They must have a boss like they did in Traverse Town.”

            “And if we stop the real culprit after the Queen’s heart, maybe she’ll let us go!” Goofy added enthusiastically.

            “But where do we look?” Donald wondered out loud.

            Then, Alice looked to the Cheshire Cat. “Cheshire Cat, do you know where we should go?”

            “Should you go? Or should you not go? I should think that’s your decision, not mine.” The Cheshire Cat responded coyly. “But if you’re looking for the shadows, you might find them in the upside-down room.”

            “Upside-down room?” Kairi mulled over the advice. “You mean on the ceiling? How do we get there?”

            “Perhaps you can find a way by looking at those with faces.” The Cheshire Cat told her, but then disappeared again.

            “Wait!” Kairi tried to get more out of him.

            But without reappearing, the Cheshire Cat’s voice said one more thing. “Don’t let your guard down; the shadows are after you both. You might be able to protect yourself, but will Alice really be safe?” He questioned and fell silent, gone for real now.

            But with that warning, Kairi looked back at Alice, who clutched her hands to her chest, clearly frightened by the Cheshire Cat’s implication. She wanted to assure her it would be alright, but words alone weren’t enough. Thinking hard about it, Kairi reached down to her belt and unhooked the Thalassa shell charm she’d made back on the islands. For a solitary moment, she looked down at the charm as it reminded her again of her lost home and friends. At least all the running around they’d done had confirmed that Sora and Riku weren’t here in this world.

            Right now, she had to focus on keeping Alice safe and getting her out of here. Cementing her determination, Kairi spoke, “Alice, can I get you to hold onto something for me?”

            “Huh?” Alice looked up at Kairi as she placed the star shaped charm in her hand. “What is it?”

            “It’s a good luck charm I made for me and my friends.” Kairi answered. “There’s a legend back where I’m from that sailors used to make lucky charms just like this one to ensure they had a safe trip, and I made this so that if we ever got separated, we would always find each other again.”

            “Oh my, I couldn’t possibly take something so special.” Alice thought innocently and tried to give the charm back, but Kairi refused.

            “Don’t worry about it. This is just a loan until we get you out of here.” Kairi explained with a smile. “Once we’re all safe and sound, I’ll ask for it back, okay?”

            This was Kairi’s promise. No matter what happened, she would protect Alice and keep her safe. The little girl saw her determination to see this through, and all the fear she had felt suddenly felt far away as she nodded her head. “Thank you, Kairi. I’ll never forget this.”

            Kairi nodded back to her, and then looked over to Donald and Goofy. “So, the hint was to ‘look at those with faces’, right?” She reminded herself of the cryptic advice.

            “Well, this lion has a face. Maybe it does something.” Goofy noted, looking at the wall ornament the Cheshire Cat had just vacated.

            Unfortunately, after examining it closely, they concluded that it was nothing more than a decoration. “So much for that idea.” Donald said while tapping his foot. “Anything else with a face around here?”

            “What about that over there?” Alice pointed back across the room, indicating a teddy bear perched on a shelf.

            They hurried over to it, but after checking it out, the teddy bear didn’t seem any more special than the lion head. However, they didn’t see anything else that fit with their clue, so they started brainstorming. “You think we can move it?” Goofy suggested.

            “I don’t know,” Donald was unconvinced.

            “May as well give it a shot.” Kairi said.

            But as Donald walked towards the bear, he misstepped and tripped over a latch that held the shelf parallel to the ground. When he did, the latch came off, the shelf fell over, and the bear fell towards the floor and landed on one of the chairs underneath. More importantly, as soon as the bear hit the chair, a grandfather clock that had previously been another image on the wall popped out and stood tall in the center of the room.

            Everyone looked over at it, and then Kairi realized what the Cheshire Cat’s clue had been pointing towards. “The clock face!” She exclaimed, and then ran over and jumped up onto the clock. She looked around on top of it, trying to find something that would help them, but for now, there was still nothing. “Do you think we can move this?” She asked Donald and Goofy when she came up empty.

            “Are you kidding? This thing’s way to big!” Donald pointed out.

            Kairi dropped down next to him and argued, “Unless the Cheshire Cat was lying, the way to the ceiling has to be behind the clock, let’s at least try.”

            Donald sighed, but relented as he, Kairi, and Goofy worked together and tried to push the giant clock to the side, but to little surprise, it wouldn’t budge. Far from giving up, however, Kairi stepped back and summoned her Keyblade, lashing out at the side of the clock over and over as hard as she could, but she still couldn’t get it to slide over.

            “Well, now what do we do?” Donald questioned.

            Kairi racked her brain and looked all around the room, taking note of everything in sight. Finally, she looked at the scratches on the clock where she hit it, and then something came to mind. Looking back to her companions, she smiled and said to them “I think I have an idea.”

 

* * *

 

 

            Soon enough, the card soldiers came out onto the wall in droves, and quickly noticed the number of scratches on the side of the grandfather clock and the ground next to it. Naturally coming to the conclusion that it had been moved, and the one in charge gave the order for everyone to start pushing.

            Together, the dozens of soldiers set down their axes and spears to gather along the side of the clock and it slowly began moving away closer to the opposite wall. While they did, Kairi peeked out from her hiding spot behind them in a small book shelf in the corner of the room. With heightened anticipation, she watched and waited as the card soldiers moved the grandfather clock, and sure enough, a hole was eventually uncovered under the base of the clock.

            Seeing that, Kairi stepped out of her hiding spot and quietly took a few steps closer until the hole was completely open, and then let out a shout before the soldiers tried to go through. “Hey!” The soldiers all twisted around to see he with her Keyblade at the ready. “You want me? Come and get me!”

            Kairi provoked the card soldiers, and they snapped into action, grabbing their weapons back up off the ground and charging her all at once. Kairi began running away from them, and as they gave chase, Donald, Goofy, and Alice quickly came out from behind the grandfather clock and made their way immediately to the hole in the wall, disappearing through it before the card soldiers even noticed they were there.

            And once they did, Kairi picked up her speed and ran at the upper corner of the wall where part of the ceiling jutted out at a slant. When she reached it, she curved off to the side and began running up the slant to get over the card soldiers head and jumped off to get behind them all. Rolling back to her feet when she hit the ground, Kairi then made a mad dash for the hole that the others had gone through, even with the card soldiers still hot on her tail. But when she approached the hole, Kairi jumped and spun around, and with a shout, launched a fireball from her Keyblade that curved up passed the card soldiers and down to set the teddy bear that had caused the grandfather clock to pop out of the wall in the first place.

            As the plush doll started burning away, Kairi fell back into the hole, and just as she’d hoped, the grandfather clock moved back into place above her and sealed up the hole to keep the soldiers from coming after them.

            On the other side of the hole, Kairi dropped down and crashed into the ground below. “You okay, Kairi?” Goofy made sure as he helped her up.

            “I’m fine. Where are we now?” She inquired once she was on her feet, looking around at what seemed to be a deeper part of the forest they had crisscrossed several times while running around.

            This place was a bit different though, appearing to be more of a small garden, in which there stood a long dining table, and off to the side, a small house. “Think that’s it?” Goofy pondered out loud.

            “Let’s hope so,” Kairi answered.

            They walked up to the house, but when Donald tried the door, it wouldn’t open. “It’s locked.”

            “Should we look for a key?” Alice asked, trying to be helpful.

            “No, I think I’ve got it.” Kairi told her and held her Keyblade up to the door.

            Yuffie had told her back in Traverse Town that the Keyblade wasn’t called that only because of its shape, she said it had the ability to open any lock, anywhere. With a sparkle of light from the Keyblade, Kairi heard the lock come undone, and opened the door with ease. “Alright, let’s go.” She nodded to the others and stepped through.

            As they were hoping, the door led them onto the ceiling of the bizarre room, easily proved by looking up and seeing the ground level with its table and chair sticking out like a chandelier. The odd sight had a disorienting effect though, and Kairi shook her head to keep her sense of direction in check. They made their way further into the room, but came to a stop when they discovered the Cheshire Cat sitting in wait for them.

            “Well, where are the Heartless?” Kairi asked him.

            “Oh, they’re hiding somewhere. And the mome raths outgrabe.” The Cheshire Cat responded in more riddles. “Want to find the shadows? Try turning on the lights.”

            With only that to say, the Cheshire Cat disappeared once again, leaving the adventurers to figure it out. Luckily, there wasn’t much to figure out this time, as the only thing on the ceiling was a pair of candle lamps, and after climbing up to them, was able to easily light them each with the press of a button.

            “All of the lights are on.” And once more, the Cheshire Cat reappeared in the room when they were done. “You’ll see the shadows soon; they’ll arise in this room, but somewhere else. The shadows might go after that doorknob, too.”

            “Doorknob?” Kairi questions and looked back up at the ground floor above her, recalling the talking doorknob they passed before walking in on Alice’s trail. “Wait, you-” She turned back down, but the Cheshire Cat had already vanished again.

            But turning to her companions, she continued her complaint, “You mean after all of that, we still have to go back the way we came? Wasn’t that the problem in the first place?”

            “Maybe there’s a shortcut like the one behind the block.” Donald suggested.

            “Well, there better be.” Kairi crossed her arms dejectedly. “Otherwise this was all-”

            But in the middle of her frustration, Kairi was interrupted by the sound of a door crashing open, turned to see a new opening in the wall, and saw the card soldiers begin pouring out from it. Kairi called a retreat, but the moment they jumped down from the candle lamps, they were stopped by a second group of card soldiers that entered from the same entrance they had used to get here.

            And just like that, they were cornered. Kairi, Donald, and Goofy all pulled out their weapons and took up positions around Alice while the card soldiers closed them in. Then, once they were surrounded, a few opened a hole for the Queen of Hearts herself. “Thought you’d seen the last of me, did you?” She gloated. “Well now the jig is up, and it’ll be off with all of your heads!”

            “You’re crazy!” Kairi yelled at the queen. “Alice didn’t do anything, so shouldn’t you be more worried about finding the real culprit after your heart instead of hunting down a little kid?”

            “That’s preposterous; _anyone_ who defies me is guilty!” The queen ranted, unwilling to listen to reason. “Soldiers, seize these vagrants at once!”

            Giving the order, the Queen stood back and her card soldiers moved in to apprehend them all. “No, stay back!” Kairi shouted anxiously, throwing out a fan of fire with a wave of her Keyblade to scare them back. “Stay close to me, Alice.”

            Taking Alice’s hand, Kairi pointed her Keyblade at a card soldier to her right and shot a fire spell at him. The fireball knocked him down and Kairi took the opportunity to jump over him and out of the encirclement, and a few soldiers turned around to face her while the rest stayed on Donald and Goofy, who stood back-to-back. And with that, the fight was on.

            While Donald and Goofy pushed back against their opponents, Kairi deflected one of the soldier’s axes and lashed out at him. Alice made sure to stay behind Kairi as she turned to alternate attacking the two closest soldiers.

            But when a third soldier moved in, Kairi was put on the defensive and back up as much as she could, but there wasn’t a whole lot of room to work with. Getting desperate, Kairi pointed her Keyblade at the ground as the group of soldiers moved in around her and set off a fire spell at her feet. The resulting flare kept the card soldiers at bay for a second, and Kairi used that opening, jumping out as the fire died down to deliver a powerful slash to the one on her left, taking him to the floor and quickly turning on her heels to pounce back at the other two before they got the idea to grab Alice.

            She made a downward slash at the closest one, who sidestepped to avoid it, but instead of chasing after him, Kairi continued on towards the next one, swinging her Keyblade sideways at him.

            The axe wielding soldier defended against the attack and prepared to retaliate, but Kairi surprised him by pushing forward once again and tackling him. She knew she was being reckless, but letting the Queen get her hands on Alice was something she just couldn’t let happen. She started to get up, but then the spearman soldier stepped towards her and lunged out at her.

            Kairi hurriedly brought up the Keyblade with one hand, but only managed to divert the spear’s path slightly. The weapon scratched her side, and she reflexively moved away, rolling away and getting back to her feet. Alice got behind her again, but then Kairi realized that they were right in front of the entrance they’d used to get here. “Alice, get out of here!”

            “What about you?” Alice asked, reluctant to run away on her own.

            “We’ll be fine, just get somewhere safe.” Kairi told her. “Go!”

            Kairi gave Alice a push towards the doorway, and after another second of hesitation, she turned and ran as ordered. “Don’t let her get away!” The Queen called on her soldiers to hurry.

            “Keep your hands off her!” Kairi yelled back and prepared to launch another fire spell. But before she did, Alice suddenly let out a scream of terror, and she turned around to see a group of Heartless had spawned at the exit to cut her off. “No!”

            With a spike of fear and adrenaline, Kairi forgot about the Queen and her soldiers and sprinted to protect Alice. She quickly shot off her charged up fire spell, but one of the Red Nocturnes that absorbed fire put itself in the way and nullified the attack. Angry, Kairi jumped at the flying Heartless and cut straight through it with her Keyblade without stopping.

            But right before her eyes, Kairi watched as Shadows and Soldiers grabbed at Alice’s arms and legs, pulling her against her will towards a pool of darkness in the corner of the room. She closed in, but a Soldier cut her off and threw its entire body into her to keep her back. Kairi fought through the pain and put the Soldier out of the way, not even bothering to finish it off as she ran for the pool of darkness as the Heartless began to drag Alice into it. “Alice!”

            “Kairi!” They called out to each other just as Alice’s head sank into the darkness and only her arm was left above ground, but was sinking fast.

            Kairi vaulted out and reached for Alice’s hand, but was just a second too slow, and as Alice disappeared, the pool of Darkness closed up and Kairi crashed into the floor. “Alice!” Kairi yelled out again, getting up on her knees and stabbing her Keyblade into the corner, as if that might reopen the darkness that took her.

            But it was useless, she was gone. “What in heaven’s name was that?” Behind her, the Queen expressed shock at the sight of the Heartless, and Kairi stood back up to glare at the vile woman.

            “That was your culprit!” She yelled at the Queen. “That was what was really after your heart! And now thanks to you, Alice has been taken to who knows where!”

            The fighting had come to a stop in light of what just happened, so Donald and Goofy hurried back to Kairi and stood with her. The Queen didn’t seem to know how to process this information, so when she spoke next, she simply started shouting out more orders. “Find the one’s responsible party! I don’t care how, just do it immediately!”

            Without hesitation, the card soldiers saluted their queen and scattered, leaving the room through either of the two entrances they used to get in, and completely ignoring Kairi, Donald, and Goofy as they passed by them.

            “Well, what are you waiting for?” And once the soldiers were gone, the Queen addressed the three of them again. “Quit dawdling and find Alice at once!”

            As if none of the fighting had happened, the Queen ordered them out to do her bidding. Kairi doubted that was supposed to be any sort of apology, the Queen had simply decided this was more important and didn’t want to waste time and energy on continuing to fight with them. But if this meant they could stop worrying about getting chased around by the card soldiers, Kairi wasn’t going to push it.

            “Come on,” Kairi turned to Donald and Goofy. “If we take out the Heartless leader, we can still save Alice.” They nodded, and the three of them set out.

            They already knew where to go, so without the card soldiers getting in their way, they quickly made it back to the ground floor of the bizarre room. And when they arrived, the Cheshire Cat was sitting on the table waiting for them. “You’ll have a better view from higher up.” He said cheerfully, which annoyed Kairi when Alice’s safety was at stake.

            But she kept herself calm and climbed up onto the table with Donald and Goofy, meeting the Cheshire Cat and looking around. “Okay, where is it?”

            “The shadows should be here soon.” The Cheshire Cat answered as he stood up and leaned against his tail. “Are you prepared for the worst? If not, too bad!”

            As he delivered that warning, the Cheshire Cat pointed up and then faded away. Kairi looked up at the ceiling and then – very suddenly – she saw something form and fall down in front of the table, hitting the floor and shaking the room, then bouncing up over the table and landing on its axe-like feet. Straightening up, the giant Heartless looked like something from a circus, a totem pole head with multiple faces stacked on top of each other and paper-like arms that twirled a pair of juggling clubs with double legs that bent both forward and backwards.

            Kairi tightened her grip on the Keyblade and stared down the monster. With only one thing on her mind, she yelled out at the Heartless as she prepared a fire spell. “Give Alice back!”

            Kairi shot the fire spell at the Trickmaster’s head and charged ahead, jumping off the edge of the table as the spell burst against it and swung her Keyblade into its body as she fell passed it. The Trickmaster wasn’t much fazed, but it wouldn’t be a boss Heartless if it went down with just that.

            Kairi hit the ground, rolled to a crouch, and turned to see the Trickmaster twist around to swipe one of its clubs down at her. She backed away from the attack, and then the Trickmaster turned back to the table to do the same at Donald and Goofy. Goofy jumped over the Trickmaster’s arm, but Donald was struck before he could and knocked off the table.

            Kairi and Goofy ran in from opposite sides of the Heartless, and while Goofy jumped to get a good whack in on the Trickmaster’s head, Kairi found it’s legs to be tougher than the rest of its body, not managing to dent it nearly as much as the Guard Armor in Traverse Town. Goofy landed next to her, but then the Trickmaster kicked out at them and knocked them down.

            It looked down at them, but had its attention stolen when Donald launched a fire spell at the side of its head, and it stretched out its arm to slam down one of its clubs at him, but he ducked to the side and under the cover of the table while Kairi and Goofy got to their feet and put some distance between them and the Trickmaster.

            “Its legs are too hard to break. We need to get at its head.” Kairi told Goofy.

            Goofy nodded and ran back in while Kairi shot another fire spell at the Trickmaster’s head to draw its attention towards her as she ran around it. Goofy waited, and when the Trickmaster took a step to follow Kairi, he positioned himself in the way of his foot and held his shield overhead, so when the Heartless boss stepped down, it became off balance and Goofy was able to push up against it to send it toppling over.

            Once it did, Kairi and Donald charged in and together and smashed their weapons against the Trickmaster’s head. They only got a few free seconds to do so however, and then the Trickmaster used its flexible arms and tried to bat them both away with its clubs. Once again, Donald was unable to avoid it and was hit towards the wall, and while Kairi managed to jump over the first swing, the second came too quickly and knocked her straight out of the air and into Goofy as he tried to get closer.

            With spectacular flexibility, the Trickmaster twisted itself back onto its feet and raised both of its clubs to bring down on top of Kairi and Goofy, who quickly rolled to the sides to avoid being crushed. Kairi got back up and watched the Trickmaster actually walk passed her to the other side of the room, stopping in front of the stove next to the chimney. “Hey, pay attention!” Annoyed at being seemingly ignored, Donald shouted at the Heartless boss at lobbed a fire spell at its head.

            Before it reached though, the Trickmaster turned around and showed that it had used the stoves to set its juggling clubs on fire. And with a flick of its wrist, a fireball much larger than Donald’s spell flew out, swallowing the smaller flame and setting out to crash into Donald himself. The Trickmaster’s fireball was slower than their magic though, and Donald was able to avoid it. But just as the first fireball died out, the Trickmaster threw out a second, this time aimed at Kairi.

            She ran to the side only to find that the fire was able to follow her movements, and quickly dove behind one of the table’s legs to make the fireball break against an obstacle. Then without missing a step, Kairi jumped onto the chair and again to the table, running across it at the Trickmaster while it walked closer to the table and held its fiery clubs over its head again.

            Kairi rushed to the edge of the table and leapt off of it just as the Trickmaster slammed its clubs down on it, which forced the table to retract into a flat image on the floor. Kairi ignored it as she rose towards the Trickmaster’s head and smashed her Keyblade into it as hard as she could, even using the force of her swing to keep herself from flying passed it like last time so that she could strike its body a couple more times on her way to the floor.

            Unfortunately, when Kairi did reach the floor, the Trickmaster quickly swiped her aside with its fiery club, burning her as it threw her over next to Donald. He helped her back up, but before they could make another move, the Trickmaster crossed its clubs together and shot off a bigger, faster fireball that crashed down and engulfed both of them. Goofy called out to them from the other side of the room, but the Trickmaster turned its attention to him, swinging its clubs and making him play defense.

            The flames died away from Kairi and Donald, and while the burns stung, Kairi couldn’t let that slow her down. Gritting her teeth, she started to run forward again, but then Donald grabbed her arm and stopped her. “Kairi, wait!” He told her, and she looked back at him, wondering what was up. “I have an idea.”

            The Trickmaster slammed his burning club down at Goofy once more, and when he backed away to avoid it, he found himself with his back against the wall. The giant Heartless prepared to strike once more, but then a fire spell struck the back of its head that drew its attention, and it turned to face Kairi in the middle of the room, standing tall. “Come on, I’m the one you want, right?” She taunted it.

            Reacting, the Trickmaster held out one of his clubs and used it to fling another fireball straight at Kairi. Kairi waited for it to close in, but instead of dashing forward when it came down, she back-stepped instead and let it strike the floor. After that, she watched the Trickmaster throw out a second fireball with its other club as well, and when it, Kairi began to run in a circle to the right.

            Like before, the fireball started to chase her down, but it only took a few seconds for it to burn out behind her, and at that moment, Kairi turned back to the Trickmaster and sprinted forward. The Trickmaster spun one of its clubs around in its hand, and then used it to throw a third fireball. Kairi didn’t stray in her charge, and prepared to slide under it at the last second this time, but was surprised when the table – which had been flattened into an image just a couple minutes ago – sprung back up to its full height under her feet.

            She stumbled for a second, and the fireball that had been chasing her only hit the bottom of the table. The table popping back up hadn’t been part of the plan, but the higher altitude would help Kairi considerably. Resuming her charge, Kairi watched as the Trickmaster began to hold up both of his clubs and crossed them in front of each other, preparing its larger fireball from earlier.

            Caution to the wind, Kairi leapt from the edge of the table straight at the burning club and pointed her Keyblade at them. Charging up her magic, Kairi didn’t launch a fire spell this time, and instead a burst of ice surged forward, colliding with the Trickmaster’s clubs at the same time as another blizzard spell from Donald on the ground below.

            With the combined ice magic, the flames on the Trickmaster’s clubs were extinguished and the weapons were stuck together, so the Heartless boss was unable to pull them apart from each other. In addition, being frozen over weakened the clubs structure, and Kairi pulled her Keyblade back as she continued to encroach on them, swinging with everything she had to break the clubs.

            They shattered to pieces, and the fragments flew back into the Trickmaster’s face, causing it to stumble a step back. “Goofy!” Donald called to his friend.

            Having been told the plan while Kairi distracted the Trickmaster, Goofy didn’t hesitate to get under the Trickmaster’s foot and use his shield to once again throw it off balance. It didn’t topple over but it did stumble, dropping its body and head below Kairi as she fell back to the ground. With a perfect shot at the Trickmaster, Kairi took hold of her Keyblade with both hands and crashed it down on its head as she dropped to the floor.

            The Trickmaster lurched from the attack, and for good measure, Kairi turned up at the monster and once again shot a fire spell at its face. The spell connected, exploded, and the Trickmaster stiffened up, seemed to freeze for a second, and then fell over onto its back. And as its paper arms floated down to lie with its body, the giant Heartless began to glow, releasing the heart trapped within, and quickly faded away until nothing was left of it.

            Able to relax, Kairi’s adrenaline slipped away and she realized just how exhausted she was from the whole day and fell back onto the floor, about ready to fall asleep on the spot. Before she could though, she heard someone else give a loud yawn from behind her, and turned over to look at the talking doorknob they’d passed on the way to Alice’s trail.

            Remembering what the Cheshire Cat said about the possibility of the Heartless trying to go after it as well as Alice, Kairi stood back up and walked closer to the doorknob with Donald and Goofy. “What a racket.” It complained without opening its eyes. “How a doorknob to get any sleep?” It asked absently to no one, and gave another big yawn.

            But when it did, Kairi and the others thought they noticed something glowing inside its mouth, and tried to get a closer look. The glow seemed to take on a shape as it grew brighter, and as it did, the Keyblade in Kairi’s hand gave an odd reaction, shaking around and pulling her arm forward to point directly at whatever was, and shot a ray of light of its own into it.

            When the pair of lights faded away, they heard what sounded like a latch locking, and the doorknob returned to its nap as something fell out onto the floor at Kairi’s feet. “What just happened?” Kairi asked, unable to make heads or tails of any of it.

            “I’m not sure,” Goofy mused as he leaned down to pick up the object that came out of the doorknob. “This looks like a gummi block, but it’s not like the ones we use on our ship.”

            “Give it here, I’ll hold onto it.” Donald decided, and Goofy handed over the strange gummi.

            “Splendid work!” Appearing back on the table behind them, the Cheshire Cat offered his congratulations to the team. “You’re quite the hero. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for Alice, she’s not here anymore.”

            “What!?” Kairi was distraught.

            “She’s gone! Off with the shadows, into darkness.”

            And with just that, the Cheshire Cat once more vanished from sight. “Alice…” Kairi whispered to herself. She promised to protect her, even gave her the good luck charm to reassure her she’d keep her safe, but in the end, she’d failed. The Heartless had taken her, and Kairi had no idea where to, or why.

            But in an effort to bring her spirits up, Donald provided a ray of hope. “Let’s get back to the gummi ship. We might be able to find her in another world.”

            It was small comfort in the face of her failure, but Kairi looked to Donald and nodded, thankful for the push. Adding a new goal on top of finding their friends – Kairi, Donald, and Goofy rushed back to their ship and set out to search for more worlds.


	4. Priorities

            _“Clayton…”_

_“Not Clayton! * &&X%! Not Clayton!”_

“AHHHHH!” With a shout of shock and pain, the hunter Clayton was crushed underneath the body of the stealth sneak chameleon Heartless. And once the monster’s body burned away, there was nothing left of either of them.

            Kairi felt ill. Clayton hadn’t been a good person, but she didn’t want him dead. However, she was given very little time to brood over that, because the gorilla leader Kerchak approached her and – very suddenly – picked her up and threw her into the air, falling down on top of the cliffside that had been revealed in the battle.

            Donald, Goofy, and Jane were soon given the same treatment and dropped down around Kairi. Tarzan climbed up the cliff himself, and looked back at Kerchak with a stoic expression. No emotion was displayed on either’s face, but there seemed to be some kind of understanding between the two now that everything was said and done. With that, Kerchak turned away and lead the gorilla pack away from the cliffside, with just one of the younger ones staying behind and following Tarzan. Kairi wasn’t sure what to make of the sudden situation, so she simply looked around to take in the view of the waterfalls behind her for a moment.

            “Tarzan, home.” Speaking up, Tarzan drew the group’s attention.

            “Your home?” Kairi asked, but he didn’t respond right away, instead motioning to a cave off to the side and beginning to lead the group towards it.

            Everyone followed him, and Tarzan lead the group through a number of tricky paths that looped behind the waterfalls, and continued deeper into the caves. Eventually, the group came to a stop when they reached a cove where sunlight shined down from the opening overhead, and a lone tree stood against the stone wall, with butterflies swarming its moss.

            Having reached this place, Tarzan spoke one word. “*&&X%.”

            It was the word he’d spoken to Kairi when she’d first asked if Sora and Riku were here. Tarzan seemed to be indicating that this was that place, but that didn’t add up to her. “You said this was your home, right? Then, does that mean-” She tried to ask for an explanation, but then Tarzan held up his arm to silence her, and then cupped his hand behind his ear, telling her to listen.

            She did, and was surprised when she recognized the sound. “The waterfalls…” Jane pointed out. “They’re echoing all the way here.”

            They had put quite a bit of distance between them and the falls reaching this point, so it was rather impressive that they could still be heard clearly if you listened for them. But that still didn’t explain where Sora and Riku were. “*&&X%.” Once more, Tarzan repeated the word, but then added, “Friends there. See friends.”

            “Oh, now I’ve got it!” Jane smiled as she had a revelation. “*&&X% means ‘heart’. Friends in our hearts.”

            “H-heart…” Tarzan repeated the translation.

            “That’s what you meant?” Kairi dropped her head in depression, upset that she had let herself get her hopes so high.

            “Friends, same heart.” Tarzan spoke once more. “Clayton, lose heart. No heart – no see friends. No heart – no friends.”

            “Sorry about before, Donald…” Being impacted by Tarzan’s words, Kairi chose to let go of her earlier grievance with Donald Duck that had resulted in their crash landing.

            “I’m sorry, too.” Donald reciprocated, and then Goofy grabbed both of their shoulders with a laugh.

            “Yeah, all for one!” Goofy stated.

            Kairi smiled at him for a second, but then when one of the bright blue butterflies in the cove flew by her face, it drew her attention back to the base of the tree growing out of the cove, and the kaleidoscope of butterflies seemed to disperse for her as she drew closer, revealing a notch in the trunk that glowed faintly and was shaped like a keyhole.

            Kairi looked back to Donald and Goofy, but had a sense of what this was already. Remembering what had happened with the doorknob in Wonderland, Kairi summoned her Keyblade and pointed it at the notch. With a faint flash, a ray of light shot into the notch, and with the familiar sound of a latch locking, the light faded and showed that the notch in the tree had been sealed up. And just like in Wonderland, a strange looking gummi block fell down at her feet.

            “Well, that’s definitely a gummi…” Donald observed.

            “…But it’s sure not the king’s.” Goofy added solemnly.

            Kairi turned back to the others, and while Tarzan and Jane seemed rather confused by what she’d just done, they didn’t ask any questions either. Kairi wouldn’t be able to answer them anyways, since she still had no idea what these keyholes even were.

            And so, with that, the group returned to the camp, and Kairi bid farewell to Jane and Tarzan before heading out with Donald and Goofy to find their gummy ship and take off again into space.

 

* * *

 

            A couple days later, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy disembarked on a world that was decidedly tamer than their previous stops. Unlike the chaotic Wonderland or wild Deep Jungle, the town they found themselves in here was much more civil and organized. The number of people bustling through the streets also dwarfed the populations of the previous worlds, and while the architecture and fashion of the town suggested this world was far less advanced than one like Traverse Town or even Destiny Islands, it was a welcome change in Kairi’s opinion.

            There also didn’t seem to be a problem with Heartless here, at least for now, so the three of them were able to relax a bit while searching the town and asking the citizens if anyone had seen their friends. Unfortunately, after a couple hours, they’d yet to find any clues, and came to a point where they had to break for lunch. They found a place to eat, but the building didn’t have anywhere to sit, so Kairi, Donald, and Goofy ended up standing next to the far wall while holding bowls of soup in one hand.

            While the other two dug in, Kairi leaned back against the wall behind her with a sigh. “I guess this world’s another bust. Nobody has seen Sora or Riku anywhere here.”

            “Aw, don’t worry about it.” Goofy told her with an optimistic smile. “We’ve just gotta keep looking, that’s all.”

            “And at least we didn’t have any Heartless keeping us distracted for once.” Donald stated.

            “I guess so…” Kairi sighed again.

            “Come on, Kairi, you’ve got to cheer up.” Donald encouraged her. “You don’t want to be looking like that when you find your friends, do you?”

            Kairi looked at Donald when he said that. It wasn’t really the best argument, but she appreciated the effort he was putting out, and smiled at him. “Right,” She nodded, and then turned back to her soup and ate quickly, wanting to get back to the search.

            Once they were done eating, the three left the thermopolia and decided what to do next. “There’s one place we haven’t checked yet.” Kairi noted when Goofy asked if they were done here. “I still want to check out that Coliseum place people were talking about.”

            During their search, a few of the people they talked to had suggested going to the Coliseum since people tended to gather there, and said she might be more likely of finding her friends if she went there. Thinking about it now, a Coliseum sounded just like the kind of place Sora and Riku would end up if they were in this world. They always did love to compete with each other back on the islands, after all.

            Donald and Goofy nodded, but just as the three of them started making their way to their destination, screams erupted in the opposite direction, causing them to stop and look back as people started running away from something in a panic.

            “M-monsters!” Someone yelled out, catching the attention of Kairi, Donald, and Goofy.

            “Did they escape from the Coliseum?” Another wondered out loud.

            “Is it the Heartless?” Kairi questioned, summoning her Keyblade on reflex.

            “Only one way to find out.” Donald replied, and he and Goofy began running towards the commotion.

            Kairi followed after them, and as they rounded the corner to the open market plaza, they found half the buildings set on fire by red nocturnes while shadows, powerwilds, and large bodies paraded around causing as much destruction as they could.

            And before the three of them could even charge in to take them out, they heard something behind them and turned around to see three more red nocturnes appear and quickly shoot out a wave of fire spells together, striking the ground and exploding, throwing all of them right into the middle of the Heartless party.

            Now in a tight spot, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy got back to their feet and stood with their backs to each other. “Take ‘em out!” No time to think of a complicated plan, Kairi called for a full-throttle assault as she coated the Kingdom Key in ice magic and took a swing at one of the powerwilds in front of her while Donald and Goofy charged out in their own directions to spread the battle out.

            The powerwild Kairi aimed at first jumped back and avoided her attack, but she didn’t slow down and quickly turned her Keyblade on the large body next to her. The blow hit hard, and with the elemental touch, the large Heartless staggered away. Then, noticing one of the red nocturnes aiming a fire spell at her, Kairi brought up her Keyblade to defend, striking through the fireball as it came flying at her, jumping in immediately afterwards and swatting the flying Heartless into a cloud of dust. She then continued forward and struck down two of the powerwilds with back-and-forth swings from her weapon.

            Kairi and the others kept fighting strong, but for some reason, the Heatless’ numbers didn’t seem to be dwindling. No matter how many the three of them took out, another one appeared to take its place, and eventually, the onslaught took its toll on their stamina. Just when it finally looked like the Heartless had stopped spawning and there was just a handful of them left, Kairi took a heavy punch from one of the large bodies and was knocked onto her back. Donald and Goofy called out to her, but they were barely holding on themselves and couldn’t do anything to help.

            Kairi pushed herself up onto her elbows, but could only watch as the large body lifted its arms over its head to bring them crashing down on top of her. However, just before the Heartless attacked, someone ran in from behind Kairi and swept a monster-sized sword across the large body’s chest, taking it out in a single strike. And as the man stood there in front of her, Kairi was somehow reminded of Sora, her mind overlaying an image of her friend with that of her savior, though that was most likely just due to the man’s similarly spiky hair.

            For just a second, the tall blond man glanced back at Kairi with a stoic look, and then turned back and sped through the battlefield to quickly and flawlessly take out the remaining Heartless. Kairi didn’t even know it was possible for someone to defeat the Heartless so effortlessly without the Keyblade, so when the last of them were destroyed and her red-caped hero drew close to her again, Kairi just stared up at him from the ground in awe.

            Looking down at her with the sun behind him, the young man knelt down close and asked her, “Are you hurt?”

            “H-huh?” Kairi stuttered at his voice. It was almost emotionless, but there was also a gentleness to it that contrasted the intimidating outline of his clothes and massive sword that caught her off guard.

            Seeming to judge that her injuries weren’t severe, the young man offered out his hand to Kairi and asked another question, “Can you stand?”

            Kairi took the offered hand absently and was pulled up to her feet. “Thank you,” She said as she began to find her words again, still holding the stranger’s hand. “Um- I’m Kairi. Who are you?” She asked, slipping her mind to introduce Donald and Goofy as well as they hurried back to her side.

            “Cloud,” The man introduced himself, looking across at the three of them, taking in their appearances. “You’re not from here, are you?”

            At that question, Kairi was shocked back to reality and finally drew her hand away from Cloud as she hurried to supply a plausible cover. “Yeah, well, I guess you could say we’re new to the area…” She told him vaguely.

            “No,” However, Cloud surprise them when he corrected Kairi’s misunderstanding. “I mean, you’re not from this world, are you?”

            Kairi froze. Aside from the people in Traverse Town, she’d never met anyone that knew about other worlds. Even Alice had been ignorant of the concept despite apparently having travelled between them herself. So when Cloud asked her about it, Kairi fumbled around trying to think of a way to deny it. “W-what do you mean? I-”

            “It’s okay, you don’t have to hide it from me.” Cloud interrupted her again to ease her concern. “I’m not from this world either.”

            “Oh,” Was all Kairi could manage, not really sure how to react anymore. She looked around, but the world’s inhabitants were all long gone, so there was no threat of them being overheard. “Well, thanks again for helping us out, you showed up just in the nick of time.”

            “Don’t mention it.” Cloud shrugged off the gratitude. “I’m curious though, why did you come here?”

            “We’re trying to find our friends. We got separated, so we’re travelling from world to world looking for them.”

            “I see, so you’re searching for someone too.” Cloud muttered to himself.

            “Huh?” Kairi asked him to repeat himself.

            “It’s nothing, but…” For a second, Cloud seemed to hesitate with his reply. “I think I might be able to help.”

            In tandem, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy went wide-eyed at Cloud’s proclamation. “Wait, you really mean that?” Kairi questioned, trying hard not to get her hopes up.

            “How do plan to do that?” Donald asked harshly, less trusting.

            “Well, more accurately, I know someone who should be able to help.” Cloud clarified. “His name’s Hades. He’s helping me out with a search of my own in return for doing him a favor, so I’m sure he’d be willing to give you three a hand, too.”

            “Gawrsh, do you really think he can find them?” Goofy wondered aloud.

            “If nothing else, it’d be a lot more reliable than wondering around aimlessly.” Cloud explained before turning and beginning to walk away. “If you’re interested, I’ll take you to him.”

            Kairi looked excitedly to her companions, and while Goofy seemed to mirror her hope, Donald was clearly less convinced. “I don’t know about this.” He grouched.

            “But there is a chance. We’ve got to at least give it a try!” Kairi argued.

            Donald was still reluctant, but it was clear that Kairi wasn’t going to change her mind, so he sighed and relented. Nodding, the three of them hurried after Cloud, but a moment later, Kairi had to stop and pull a doubletake down an alley, swearing to herself she’d just seen Sora standing there out of the corner of her eye.

            But when she looked again, the alley was empty. “Kairi, what’s wrong?” Goofy checked with her when he and Donald realized she’d stopped in her tracks.

            Kairi looked to her companions and back down the alley one more time, but came to the conclusion that it must have been a hallucination brought on by the prospect of finding her friends again combined with the similarities to Sora she had seen in Cloud. “It’s nothing; let’s go.” She brushed the event off with a shake of her head, and hurried again to catch up with Cloud, who was starting to get quite ahead of them.

 

* * *

 

            Having left town, Cloud lead Kairi, Donald, and Goofy up into the mountains that served as its western border. There was a path paved into it, but occasionally, they would still need to scale a small cliff to reach the next elevation. Cloud made it look easy as he jumped off rock walls and boulders to reach each one, but for Kairi and the others, it took quite a bit of work to climb each ledge, though Cloud would help pull them up the last steps.

            As they continued their trek, Kairi finally decided to ask the questions that were on her mind. “So, Cloud, you said that you’re not from this world… how did you end up here?”

            “Same way as you.” Cloud answered. “I’ve got a ship I used to find this place. I was wandering up for a while, and Hades is the first real lead I’ve had for finding the person I’m looking for.”

            “So, what about _your_ world? Was it…”

            “Yeah,” Cloud confirmed with a melancholic tone. “Taken by the Heartless.”

            An awkward silence followed Cloud’s answer, and everyone came to a halt. Kairi had asked out of curiosity, but quickly felt like she might have crossed a line. “I’m sorry,”

            “Don’t worry about it,” Cloud tried to assuaged her guilt. “It happened a long time ago; I have more important things to worry about now. You do too, right?” He reminded Kairi of the objective at hand, and though she still felt bad for touching on the sensitive subject, she refocused herself on finding her friends.

 

* * *

 

 

            Eventually, the group reached their destination as Cloud lead them up to an open mouth in the side of the mountain, and Kairi saw the person they were here for, leaning against a stone throne that appeared to be carved out of the mountain itself. Hades was very tall, towering over her and even Cloud by several feet. With his dark toga, blue skin, and fire for hair, he didn’t exactly give off the most amicable vibe, but if Cloud was vouching for him, Kairi wanted to believe he was trustworthy.

            “So, you’re Hades?” Kairi confirmed as she came to stand in front of him.

            “That’s right, kiddo. Lord of the Dead, at your service.” Hades nodded and leaned down towards Kairi. “And who might you be?”

            “My name’s Kairi, this is Donald and Goofy. Cloud told us you could help us find our friends.”

            “Ah, I see.” Hades mused as he straightened back up. “Well, say no more, little missy; you definitely came to the right place.”

            “So you’ll help us!? Kairi confirmed with joy.

            “Well of course,” Hades shrugged, acting like it was only natural as he faced away from the group. “Helping people is what I do; as long as you’re willing to do a little favor for me in return that is.”

            “Anything!” Kairi agreed without thinking.

            “Perfect,” Hades exclaimed, pleased with the quick response. “Then let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we? As you’re aware, our mutual friend Cloud here is already helping me out with a job, so what I want you three to do is actually quite simple, I just need you to help him out.”

            “What do we need to do?”

            “You’ve heard about the Coliseum, right? Well, Cloud is set to participate in the Games being held their later today, and I want you three to help him reach the top of the bracket.”

            Having their task explained to them, Kairi actually exchanged surprised and confused glances with Donald and Goofy. “That’s all? You just want us to win a tournament?” She asked, the request not being what she’d anticipated.

            “Not quite,” Hades however offered a correction. “Like I said, Cloud here is already registered for the upcoming Games, so you can’t join his team. What I need you three to do is enter the tournament as a separate team. And then, when you go up against Cloud, just let him win.”

            Kairi considered the request, but came to a conclusion she didn’t like. “Wait, so you want us to cheat?” She questioned, but Hades quickly got defensive of the accusation.

            “Woo, woo, hey now, don’t think of it like that, okay? Think of it like, um… like I’m hedging my bets.” He explained, but saw that Kairi didn’t look too convinced. “Look, the tournament’s not even the important part. The real important part is what comes after.”

            “Then, what does come after?” Goofy wondered.

            “Whoever wins the tournament today will get the right to challenge the Coliseum’s reigning champion, Hercules, and _that’s_ where I need Cloud to be.”

            “So, what makes him so important?” Kairi grilled for more information.

            “Hercules and I have a… history, I guess you would say.” Hades explained as vaguely as possible. “You know, you really shouldn’t worry about it. A favor for a favor, are you in or out?”

            Kairi gave the offer some thought, and Donald and Goofy looked to her as if deferring to her choice, even though this offer impacted them as much as it did her. She considered the task, and then considered the reward. If she could really find Sora and Riku with this, it would mean everything to her.

            Heart pounding, Kairi looked up at Hades and confirmed it with him one last time, “If we agree to this, you’ll really be able to find my friends?”

            “Kid, you do this, and I promise,” Hades smiled as Kairi came around. “I’ll take you straight to them.”

 

* * *

 

            And so, the deal was struck. Having come to an understanding with Hades, Kairi took the pass she would need to enter the tournament and waved to Cloud as she, Donald, and Goofy trekked back down the mountain and through town to reach the famed Olympus Coliseum. Making their way through the initial double gates, they stopped for a moment and marveled at the sight of the hulking twin statues that stood crossing swords over the main entrance and looked to each other in awe before continuing into the Coliseum lobby.

            Once inside, they found that the only person inside was a short and stocky man with goat legs and a pair of horns on his head. As he kept himself busy tidying up the lobby, Kairi walked up and got his attention him. “Excuse me,”

            “Huh?” Pulled from his work by the unfamiliar female voice, the satyr turned to look at the unusual trio that had walked in and gave them an odd look. “Who are you three? What are you doing here?”

            “We’re here for the Games.” Kairi answered.

            “Yeah, you and everyone else.” The satyr noted with a chuckle. “Well you’re a little early if you want to watch. Games won’t start for another few hours.”

            “No, I meant we’re here to participate in the Games.” She clarified.

            “Excuse me!?” Shocked, the portly goat-man began laughing at the idea. “Listen, kid, I can appreciate the moxie, but this is the _world-famous_ Coliseum; we don’t let just anyone join in. It’s heroes only, capiche?”

            He tried to lay down the law, but in response, Donald became indignant and retorted, “You’ve got heroes standing right in front of you!”

            “Yep, Kairi’s a real hero, chosen by the Keyblade!” Goofy added, placing his hands supportively on Kairi’s shoulders.

            “And we’re heroes, too!” Donald proclaimed proudly.

            But in reaction to these statements, the satyr only seemed to grow even more shocked. “Hero!? A little girl like her?” He scrutinized the claim, and his laughter grew into a billowing howl at the idea.

            Being honest, Kairi hardly felt like she would call herself a ‘hero’ either, but it was still a bit disheartening to have someone laugh so hard at the mere thought of it. “Come on, I know I don’t exactly look the part, but I’ve fought my fair share of monsters!”

            “Is that so?” Quelling his laughter, the satyr still didn’t seem very convinced. “Sorry, kid, but without a pass, it’s my call who gets in and who doesn’t. And I say-”

            “You mean this?” Pulling out the entry pass given to her by Hades, Kairi cut the satyr’s rejection off and nearly made him fall over in shock.

            “Where did you get that?” He questioned as he hurriedly took the pass and inspected it to make sure it was legitimate.

            “Now you have to let us participate, right?” Kairi confirmed as he concluded that her pass was in fact real.

            “Well, I mean I guess, but…” He stuttered out, forced to eat his own words and accept her entry.

            Relenting with a heavy sigh, the satyr introduced himself as Phil and led the three of them to a waiting room through the back of the lobby and passed the arena where the Games would take place. Leaving them there, he reminded them that there was still some time before the tournament would begin and gave them free rein of the place until then, but the three decided to stay in the waiting room and rest up to make sure they would be at the top of their game when the time came.

 

* * *

 

            And soon enough, it did. Kairi and her companions could hear as a crowd began to gather in the stands just outside, and once it was officially a full house, Phil came back to the waiting room to get them. “Alright kid, you’re up.”

            “Then let’s get this over with.” Kairi remarked, eager to finish up here so that Hades could keep up his end of the deal.

            Standing up, Kairi led Donald and Goofy out of the waiting room and out into the sight of the crowd as they walked up and into the arena. “For your own sake, I hope you’re not all talk, kid.” Phil called out from behind them, but Kairi ignored it and summoned the Kingdom Key to her hand.

            She, Donald, and Goofy stood near the center of the stage as force fields were prepared around three sides of the Arena, and on the opposite side of the arena, a gate was raised for whatever they were facing to come out and fight. More force fields made sure to keep them on a straight path as a number of small figures began to make their way up to the stage, but as they moved into the light of the afternoon sun, Kairi was surprised to see that their first opponents would actually be a group of Heartless.

            She didn’t know what she had been expecting, but now that she was presented with this set up, she remembered that she’d overheard someone wonder if the Heartless they’d fought in town had escaped from the Coliseum, and realized these must have been regularly used here as opponents. Kairi found herself mentally questioning how this was possible, and what it could mean for the nature of this Coliseum that it could keep them under control enough to do this kind of thing at all.

            However, she doubted she would be able to figure out the answer to those questions, and so shook her head to refocus on the objective in front of her as the party of blue rhapsodies and soldiers came to a stop in front of them, and a final force field wall appeared to fully enclose the combatants within the arena ring.

            With everything set, Phil began shouting a countdown to the match start. “Three… two… one… begin!”

            The signal was given, and in reaction, the Heartless set before Kairi and her companions sprung into action. While the soldiers began moving to the sides, the three blue rhapsodies jumped forward, each attempting to tackle one of them. But being prepared, all three of them countered as Kairi swung her Keyblade up into one, Goofy smashed his shield into the side of another, and Donald quickly loosed a fire spell into the third.

            In an instant, all three were destroyed, and Kairi, Donald, and Goofy repositioned themselves with their backs to each other as the remaining soldiers encircled them and the one closest to Kairi lunged forward with its claws. Holding up the Keyblade, she defended from the attack and pushed back, knocking it over.

            But instead of taking the opening on it, Kairi instead turned and charged for the next closest enemy, trying to take it by surprise as she struck down at the soldier’s head. It jumped away, but when it did, Goofy came up behind it and smacked it back towards Kairi with his shield. Coating the Kingdom Key with fire magic, Kairi swiped up at the falling soldier and burned its form away while Donald struck the one she’d already knocked prone with a lightning spell, killing it as well.

            At that point, the final two soldiers converged on Donald while his back was turned and struck him down with a pair of kicks. Quickly, Kairi and Goofy raced back to his side and Kairi lunged passed both of the Heartless while whacking them with the Keyblade while Goofy defended Donald. The soldiers staggered for a second but then counterattacked, one slashing at Kairi while the other jumped at Goofy. However, both of them easily blocked the attacks, and after making eye contact with each other, twisted their weapons around to send the two soldiers crashing into each other, at which point Donald used a blizzard spell to strike them both and finished them off.

            The three of them relaxed with their opponents vanquished, and a roar of cheers picked up in the stands for their victory. Sheepishly, Kairi held up her hand to wave to the crowd, thinking that this whole tournament thing really wasn’t her scene, though as she looked to Donald and Goofy beside her, they were clearly more into it.

            A moment later, the force fields were removed from the ring and the three of them stepped down to speak with Phil again as he bore an impressed grin on his face. “Not bad, kid. You’re no heroes yet, but still, not bad.”

            “Gee, thanks.” Kairi replied, not very enthused by the undercut compliment.

            Just then however, Kairi’s attention shifted when Cloud entered from the lobby. As he made his way to the ring for his first match, he met gazes with Kairi and they shared a knowing moment, but didn’t say a word so as not to give away that they knew each other to Phil.

            “Something tells me he’ll be a tough one to beat.” The satyr noted as Cloud reached the center of the ring and the force fields were brought up. “Who knows, you might just end up having to fight him.”

            “Yeah…” Kairi spoke absently as she watched Cloud prepare for his fight.

            And so, the Games continued and Kairi chose to return to the waiting room between her own matches. The next couple of rounds went by almost as smoothly as their first did, and Kairi could easily tell that the cheers following each victory grew even louder than the one before as they engrossed themselves in the fights.

            After their fifth victory, Phil approached them to once again give them a small bit of praise as he began to recognize their strength. “Gotta say kid, you’re better than I gave you credit for! Wish he was here to see this.”

            “He?” Kairi questioned.

            “Hercules,” Phil answered, and the trio had the attention grabbed at the mention of the person Hades was after. “He’s a hero if ever there was one. Too bad he’s off visiting his father.”

            Kairi exchanged an intrigued look with Donald and Goofy at hearing this Hercules referred to as a hero, but they didn’t comment on it and once again returned to the waiting room until their next match.

            However, when the group entered the waiting room, they were surprised to be greeted by Hades. “Nice work out there, kiddo; you’re really knocking it out of the park.” He complimented them.

            “What are you doing here?” Kairi inquired, both out of surprise and a bit of suspicion.

            “I just thought I’d swing by and see how things were going.” Hades answered, walking passed them and taking a peek outside as he continued to talk. “And to tell you that I think I’ve narrowed down where your friends might be.”

            “Already?”

            “Don’t sound so surprised. I _am_ a god, after all. Now remember, it may be your job to throw your match against Cloud, but make sure you make a good show of it; don’t be afraid to take a few hits before you go down, alright?”

            “Okay, but…”

            “But?” Hades straightened up and turned back to Kairi. “But what? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet!”

            “Who is this Hercules guy? Why wouldn’t you tell us?”

            “What, you’re still on about that?”

            “It bothers me that I don’t know.”

            “It’s personal.” Hades stressed. “I’m not asking you any questions, am I?”

            “No, but-”

            “So, what’s the problem? All you’ve got to do is get through one more match, and then let Cloud take care of the rest, it’s that simple. You can do that, right?”

            Kairi didn’t respond, but Hades took her silence as a sign of acceptance, and left the waiting room, wishing her good luck for the next match. “Kairi…” Beside her, Goofy gave a look of concern.

            However, the moment was interrupted as the trio heard Phil call for their next match to get started. Kairi took a deep breath to calm her nerves, but before stepping back out into the ring, she turned to her companions and briefly addressed them. “Donald, Goofy, I need you guys to do me a favor…”

 

* * *

            Once more, Kairi stepped into the ring with her companions and waited as a group of red nocturnes, blue rhapsodies, and a large body stepped up to be their opponents. The three of them brought out their weapons as Phil began the countdown, and Kairi turned to nod to Donald and Goofy briefly before facing forward as the match commenced.

            Immediately following the starting signal, Donald unleashed a thunder spell that took out three of the flying elementals right out of the gate. At the same time, Kairi began circling to the right of the Heartless party, and as a blue rhapsody attempted to tackle her, Goofy intercepted it and smashed it into the ground while she kept going.

            The two remaining red nocturnes moved forward and each shot a fire spell aimed at Donald, but the mage quickly rolled underneath both and shot a blizzard spell at the one on his right and killing it instantly. Meanwhile, as Goofy flattened his shield against the blue rhapsody he’d knocked down to finish it off, the large body charged him and sent the knight staggering backwards. While it was distracted though, Kairi got a quick hit in on its back but kept moving before it could turn around and counterattack.

            As she continued around, one of the remaining rhapsodies targeted her and shot out a blizzard spell, but she reacted quickly and held up the Kingdom Key to defend against it. She came to a stop and prepared to strike it down, but before she could, Donald jumped up behind it and engulfed the Heartless in a fire spell, burning it away but unable to avoid the last nocturne as it shot its own fire spell at his back.

            Kairi hurried to get between Donald and the nocturne while it tried to get closer. Kairi swatted out at it with the Keyblade to make it keep its distance, and once Donald was back on his feet, he moved around her to shot the Heartless down with an aimed thunder spell.

            Goofy continued to hold off the large body, and in the process had defeated the only other rhapsody. Once the others finished off the rest of the elemental enemies, they turned their attention to help him, and Donald charged in first, shooting a fire spell at the large body’s side as he closed in, but as the flames struck and burst against the Heartless, its body began to glow with a ghastly aura that both indicated that it was on its last legs and that it was now even stronger than before.

            Seeing this, Donald tried to halt his approach and back up, but before he could the large body snatched him right off his feet and threw him at the ground, sending him bouncing across the arena ring as the Heartless then turned on Kairi and sprinted at her. She ducked out of the way, but it just kept running in a circle until it was back facing her again.

            But this time, before it could trample her underfoot, Goofy jumped up from the side and slammed his shield directly into the large body’s face, breaking its charge as he began to drop down behind it, but before his feet even reached the ground, the Heartless turned and swung its arms in a wide circle to bat the knight away and launch him back into the forcefield surrounding the ring.

            Goofy dropped into a heap on the floor, and the large body stepped towards him menacingly and raised its fist to crush him. However, before it got the chance, Kairi struck its back again to draw its attention. And when the large body turned around, it found Kairi holding the Kingdom Key with both hands, pointed directly at its head. With a surge of magical energy, Kairi shot a fire spell point blank at the monster’s head, and as it burst into flames, the body disappeared and the heart inside was released.

            The crowd went wild over what could only be referred to as a close call, and as her allies got back to their feet, Donald apologized to Kairi for not being able to do more. “It’s okay,” Kairi told him. “You did enough.”

            For the showmanship, the three of them waved around to the crowd for a moment once more as the forcefields were removed and walked to the edge where Phil was waiting. He announced to the crowd there would be a brief break before the final match, and then congratulated Kairi on her team making it this far. Kairi nodded along and then looked across to the other side of the arena where she saw Hades talking to Cloud like he had with her.

            She couldn’t hear what they were saying of course, but as she watched, she focused on Cloud and tried to get a read on him, but his stoic demeanor didn’t give anything away. He continued to listen to Hades’ words without giving much reaction, but at one point turned his head and happened to make eye contact with Kairi across the way. Without thinking, Kairi snapped her own head down to avert her gaze and turned away nervously.

            The others took notice, and Phil commented, “You okay, kid? You don’t look so good.”

            “I’m fine.” Kairi assured him. “Just eager to finish this.”

            “Good, everyone’s really looking forward to this next match, so I hope you can give the crowd a good show.”

            “Right, a ‘good show’.” Kairi repeated him, thinking how Hades had told her to do the same thing.

            One last time, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy returned to their waiting room for the break, but Kairi was so nervous at this point that it felt far too short when Phil called them back out again. Donald and Goofy were still feeling a bit of the damage from the previous fight, but they stayed strong as they walked out alongside Kairi and up onto the ring for the final match.

            At the same time, Cloud walked out from his corner and once again met Kairi’s eyes as he walked into the ring to stand opposite of her. While Phil began to hype up the match to the crowd, the fighters got into their ready positions. Cloud lifted his giant sword up and held it tightly with both hands, but had a moment of pause as he watched Kairi take her weapon in both hands as well and hold it up near her head with it pointed directly at him.

            It was the stance of someone intent on making the first move, and the determined look in her eyes cause Cloud to narrow his own in question. Subtly, Cloud shifted his own stance to make sure he could easily parry her first attack, and as Phil began his countdown, both of them visibly tensed with anticipation.

            “Three…” Cloud’s grip tightened further on his sword. “Two…” Kairi crouched slightly to put a spring in her first step. “One…” Donald and Goofy shared a quick, sidelong glance. “Begin!”

            All at once, everyone moved. While Donald and Goofy pushed back to gain more distance and get an angle on Cloud, Kairi shot forward and stabbed the Kingdom Key directly at him. Having expected this, Cloud took only a half-step back and turned his sword to swing up and deflect Kairi’s first attack into the air.

            Opening her up, Cloud swung a heavy blow down at Kairi, but she surprised him and quickly regained composure to pull her Keyblade down at the same time and clash head-on with Cloud’s attack. Sliding his heavy sword to the side, Kairi twisted the Keyblade around in her grip and aimed for Cloud’s shoulder, but he reacted quickly and jumped back.

            As he did, Donald and Goofy got a chance against him as they had circled around the field, but Cloud had kept his awareness of them up, so as Goofy attempted to slam into him, he instead brought his sword down over his own head to stop the knight in his tracks and then shove him back before swinging his sword the other way to intercept and break a fire spell Donald had cast at him.

            But instead of continuing to worry about them, Cloud shifted his focus back to Kairi and pulled his sword back, almost mimicking Kairi’s initial stance, but burst forward with much greater speed than she had, and it seemed to catch her off guard as the Keyblade wielder just narrowly reacted in time to deflect the first strike off to the side as Cloud passed by her, but he wasn’t done yet. On the balls of his feet, Cloud made an about-face and shot out a second time.

            The momentum of his first strike forced Kairi to turn towards his second however, so she was able to see him prepare the attack and this time made a snap dodge out of the way, twisting back towards him again only to find him rearing up for a third burst. This time though, Kairi fixed her feet against the ground and held position, so when Cloud shot out with his buster blade pointed at her, she stabbed the Keyblade directly into it and brought him to a stop at their weapons locked between them.

            And it was at that moment that Cloud chose to address her odd behavior. “I know Hades said to make it look good, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were actually trying to _win_ this fight.”

            Kairi paused for a moment, but then met Cloud’s gaze with a look of conviction and replied, “Maybe I am.”

            Pushing away from each other, Cloud and Kairi retook ready positions as they got ready for round two. “Why?” Asked Cloud, not worrying with keeping his voice down as no one would be able to hear them over the crowds cheers anyways. “What are you up to?”

            “What does Hades want with Hercules?” Kairi asked her question to the swordsman, and at the same time ran back at him and made three more attack against him, but her easily matched each one and then jumped to the side as he heard Goofy move in behind him, avoiding another shield attack.

            “What does it matter?” Cloud questioned. “All you have to do is throw the fight, right?”

            “The fact that you keep saying it doesn’t matter is exactly why it matters.” Kairi asserted. “I don’t like that I don’t know what I’m helping you to do.”

            “It’s not your problem.” Cloud tried to convince her. “You don’t have to carry the burden.”

            As they continued to argue, Cloud and Kairi continued to circle each other as if looking for an opening in the others defense, and Donald and Goofy kept to Cloud’s blind spots. “So it’s a ‘burden’ is it?”

            Kairi noted the word choice, and when Cloud faltered at realizing he misspoke, Kairi jumped at him again and caught his arm with the Kingdom Key, forcing him to step back and hold his buster blade up to block the following attack.

            “If you are going to do something even you’ll regret, then I can’t just let it happen and pretend it’s not my problem.” This was why, for the previous match, Kairi had asked Donald and Goofy to handle most of the fighting without her. So that if it came to this, she would still have the strength to fight back. “So unless you tell me what your deal with Hades was, I’m not going to keep mine!”

            At that point, Cloud pushed forward and shoved Kairi away from him. “You’d give up the chance to find your friends?”

            Kairi tensed. Of course she wanted to find them, but… “What good would finding them be if I couldn’t look them in the eye when I did?” She declared. “I have to do what my heart says is right, or else finding them wouldn’t be worth it!”

            Kairi charged in again, but Cloud saw that she was being more reckless this time, and took advantage of it by parrying her attack and throwing her onto her back. She hit the ground hard, but Donald kept him from going in for a second attack by shooting a blizzard spell and forcing him to dodge out of the way.

            “Alright,” As Kairi got back to her feet, Cloud responded to her convictions. “Then don’t hate me for this. I have to follow my heart, too.”

            Kairi held her Keyblade up in anticipation, but there was no way she could have prepared herself for Cloud’s next attack. Gathering his strength, Cloud pushed towards Kairi and swung the center of his sword at her, and though it caught the Keyblade, her arms gave way under the pressure and had her own weapon pressed into her body before being flung across the arena.

            If not for the forcefields that locked combatants in, Kairi would have flown straight out of the ring with that attack. Donald and Goofy called out for her as she collapsed onto her hands and knees, but even when they tried to charge in at Cloud together, he was too fast, running at Kairi with his intent to finish the match quickly. But Kairi couldn’t let herself go down now, and reached down to her belt as Cloud raised his sword overhead, pulled something out, and in one quick motion, attached it to the end of her Keyblade.

            Cloud brought his sword down, and as Kairi moved to protect herself, the Keyblade suddenly changed forms in her hands. In a flash of light, the sleek and simple form of the Kingdom Key was transformed into a form that looked more rustic and wild – the Jungle King. Kairi wasn’t sure how it worked, but after her time in Deep Jungle, she had found that certain items could be attached to the Keyblade as a Keychain to alter the weapon’s shape and power.

            The keychain for Jungle King had been given to her as a gift by Tarzan when they parted ways, although whether he was aware it could be used this way or if it was just meant to be a memento of their time together was something she did not know. Either way, it came in handy here, and the new power granted by the Jungle King allowed Kairi to push back against Cloud and rise up to her feet even as he pressed down against her. The Jungle King had an appearance of being made of wood and cloth, but Kairi still felt a metallic chill as she held it, and both its reach and power were greater than the Kingdom Key.

            The audience was roaring with excitement as the battle intensified, but Kairi hardly even noticed them anymore, putting all her focus into the match itself as she locked eyes with Cloud and held her position against him while Donald and Goofy approached from behind him. However, as they closed in, Cloud yet again sensed them coming and spun in place to bring his sword grinding off Kairi’s Keyblade and swooping around the cut them off.

            They both ducked back to avoid the swing, and as Kairi tried to take the opening to strike him from behind, Cloud pulled his sword back over his head to block, quickly switching between offense and defense as he followed up by lifting his leg and kicking straight out at Kairi. She twisted out of the way and tried to fall back, but as Cloud planted his foot back on the ground, he used his momentum to twist around and put as much power as he could into a full circle swing of his sword. Kairi only caught the end of the sword as she blocked, but the power behind it was still enough to throw her balance off.

            She staggered back to recover herself, and to cover her, Donald threw out a thunder spell to send a veritable lightning storm down in the area around Cloud, the shocks causing his muscles to spasm momentarily and change his priorities. Kairi saw Cloud’s attention shift to Donald and reacted quickly to try and keep him focused on her by shooting a fire spell out at him, but he hardly even took notice of it as her crouched and shot himself several feet into the air.

            The fire spell whiffed completely, and Cloud pointed his sword down at Donald as he started to fall back to the ground. The mage tried to run away from him as he dropped, but even without a direct his from the blade, the wave of dark energy that pulsed from the impact sent Donald careening onto the ground. He was completely vulnerable, and Cloud pulled his sword out of the ground, he kicked up chunks of stone to knock Donald around even more.

            Goofy jumped in at that point and got a good hit in with his shield, but even so, Cloud barely budged from it and rammed his elbow into the knight’s gut. Buckling at the waist, Goofy was unable to defend himself as Cloud held his sword overhead to take him out. But as he brought his sword down at Goofy’s head, Kairi stepped between them and held the Jungle King overhead so that Cloud’s sword would slide off to the side and give her a perfect opening to make a counterattack.

            Finally catching the swordsman off his guard for once, Kairi stepped into her first swing and struck him hard across the chest, even getting the chance to follow the one attack with two more, spinning through her final strike to push Cloud away from them. “Donald, are you okay?” Kairi asked her ally as she watched him struggle to stand up again.

            He gave a thumbs-up to indicate he would keep fighting, but it was clear that both he and Goofy were on their last legs at this point. Even as Donald cast a quick healing spell on himself, Kairi wondered how much good it would really do, but as she looked back at Cloud, she could tell that he was starting to hurt as well.

            Likely because of that, he seemed to have switched into a defensive stance and was now waiting on Kairi’s team to make the next move instead of staying offensive as he had been so far. Taking the chance to think up a plan, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy slowly surrounded Cloud, and he made sure to keep in a position where he could see both Kairi and Donald while keeping an ear out for Goofy behind him.

            Kairi met Donald’s eyes and nodded to him, then ran straight at Cloud, forcing him to focus on her for just a moment as she jumped up in front of him and threw a fire spell at his face. Cloud got ready to strike out the flames with his sword again, but before he could, a second fire spell from Donald suddenly came into view and collided with Kairi’s spell, causing both to explode prematurely. The flames stretched out and caused the swordsman to instinctively turn his eyes from the bright light, and thanks to that, Kairi was able to drop right through the flames as they died out and strike Cloud’s head.

            Trying to make the most of the opportunity she’d stolen, Kairi followed up with a second strike across his chest, and as she saw him attempt to pull his sword up to counterattack, pushed into him and body checked him. He stumbled backwards, and as he did, Goofy got the jump on him and smashed his shield into his arm. Still off balance, the swordsman moved towards Donald as he prepared a blizzard spell, but this time, Cloud recovered in time and swung the flat of his sword, hitting Donald’s entire body all at once and sending him flying.

            Kairi and Goofy wanted to call to him as his body hit and bounced off the arena ground, but before they could even do that much, Cloud flipped into the air again and aimed his sword down at Goofy. Kairi noticed in time to try shooting a fire spell over Goofy as he dropped towards him, but she miscalculated the timing and threw the fireball through open air just before Cloud struck like a meteor. Goofy had his shield up to take the impact, but it wasn’t enough as his knees buckled from the attack and his body reeled from the ensuing shockwave, throwing him onto his back.

            From there, Cloud pulled his sword out of the stonework of the arena and pointed it at Kairi, the last one standing. Kairi felt a primal fear strike her heart as Cloud glared down at her, but she forced herself to swallow that fear and steel herself as he bolted forward at high speed. Remembering the attack, Kairi spun through a sidestep to dodge the attack and turn around at the same time to keep Cloud in her sights as he turned to make a second strike.

            However, instead of bolting straight at Kairi again like she expected, Cloud pushed off at an angle and moved through the space to her left, where he expected her to try and dodge to. Thankfully, Kairi noticed what he was doing and stopped herself just in time, though Cloud’s shoulder struck hers and knocked her off balance.

            She righted herself quickly, but as she did, she lost track of Cloud who began zipping around the arena at random angles to disorient her and make it impossible to tell where his real attack would come from. Kairi found herself twisting her head every which way trying to get Cloud back in his sights, but every time she saw him, he just struck out in another direction to lose her again.

            He kept moving, and Kairi felt her panic intensify each time she lost track of Cloud, fearing his next attack would be the real one. But then, in the chaos, Kairi’s eyes landed back on Donald, and as foolish as it was, her attempts to keep track of Cloud stopped. A second stretched into a minute as Kairi saw Donald desperately trying to push himself back up again, and as she turned to look at Goofy, found him doing the exact same thing. She saw their resolve to continue fighting even after being knocked down, and in that moment, Kairi’s mind cleared.

            The panic and fear disappeared, and Kairi’s mind sharpened as she zeroed in on the sound of Cloud moving all around her. For a split second, he crossed her line of sight again, but Kairi forced herself not to turn towards him. Instead, she focused on hearing where he was instead, and a moment later, could hear him get into position directly behind her.

            He was making his move, and so Kairi made hers in response. Almost simultaneously, Kairi pivoted on her back foot to turn around and Cloud pushed out with his sword trained directly on her. As Kairi turned towards him, she tightened her grip on the Jungle King and charged the blade with thunder magic, and with all her strength, drove her lightning charged Keyblade up into Cloud’s incoming buster sword.

            As the two weapons collided, Kairi’s strike knocked Cloud’s sword overhead, and the electricity in her Keyblade zapped through the blade and into his body, shocking and immobilizing him for a single moment. Kairi could not afford to waste that moment, so without missing a beat, she pulled back down on her Keyblade as it rose overhead, and in one final attack, struck down on Cloud’s head for the second time. He was sent reeling back, and while he tried his best to stay standing, the damage had been dealt.

            At last, Cloud dropped to a knee and his buster sword clattered to the ground as he lost ahold of it. And with that, the volume of the crowd’s cheers increased drastically as they celebrated Kairi’s victory. “Nice work, kid!” Behind her, Phil congratulated her efforts as well.

            But Kairi wasn’t interested in any of that. Now that the match was over – and the deal nullified – Kairi needed to have a long conversation with both Cloud and Hades about what they had been trying to do here. Thinking that, she took a few steps towards Cloud while the forcefields dissolved around them, and he looked up and made a shaky attempt to push himself back to his feet, but then…

            Kairi looked up as she saw something emerge from the monster pit behind Cloud and jump out towards the arena. Before she even had time to shout out a warning to him, the creature crashed down and crushed Cloud beneath it’s paw. Immediately, the crowd’s cheers turned into screams of terror, and they quickly began running over each other to get to the exit. Looking up at the beast from the ring however, Kairi found herself staring into the eyes of a giant three-headed dog as it seemed to lock onto her as its target. “You see, kid?” And from behind it, Kairi heard Hades voice address her with resentment. “This is what happens when you don’t do as you’re told!”

            Opening all of its mouths, the three-headed dog loomed and bit down at Kairi, who had completely exhausted herself fighting Cloud and had no energy left with which to defend herself. She fell on her butt and covered her head with her arms, but just when she thought she was doomed, she heard footsteps rushing towards her as someone leapt out in front of her to stop the beast in its tracks. Kairi opened her eyes again and found a tall, muscular man in a blue cape holding the monster up by pressing his hands against its chest from underneath.

            “Herc!” Behind her, Kairi heard Phil call out the man’s name.

            So, this was the ‘Hercules’ this whole mess had been about. “Phil, get them out of here!”

            “Don’t have to tell me twice!” Phil replied, helping pull Kairi to her feet as Goofy and Donald rushed to her side as well. “Time to vamoose, kid.”

            Kairi got to her feet and watched Hercules hold the beast back for a second, hesitating to leave under the weight of thinking this was her fault. But her knees buckled a bit under each step back, she knew that trying to keep fighting now would only make things worse. Clenching her eyes and teeth, Kairi forced herself to turn around and make a mad dash for the lobby along with the others while praying that Hercules would be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a WHOOOOOLE lot of writer's block and indecisiveness went into making this chapter. First, I was trying to figure out how to write the Olympus Coliseum chapter - then it was wondering if I should make the Deep Jungle chapter first - then it was trying to figure out how to write the Deep Jungle chapter - then it was wondering if enough changed to make it worth being a chapter - just to get back to figuring out how to write the Olympus Coliseum chapter, the original block, and that wasn't even the end of it. Anyways, here's hoping I can get the next chapter out a bit faster.


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